PATIENTS calling 999 with a cut finger or earache will no longer automatically be sent an ambulance.

From the start of next month, callers in North Yorkshire with a minor ailment will be transferred to a trained advisor.

Options open to the advisor include giving advice over the phone, recommending a GP to visit or sending a non-emergency ambulance.

Before a change in the law, Tees, East and North Yorkshire Ambulance Service (Tenyas) was obliged to send ambulances to all 999 calls, no matter how minor the condition.

Tenyas chief executive Jayne Barnes said: "This is an important development for the ambulance service and ensures that our response to individual patients is based on their clinical need.

"It's all about a patient receiving the right treatment at the right time.

"Offering a more appropriate response to patients with minor conditions means we can focus our efforts on calls which are known to be life-threatening."

Project manager Jayne Scaife said: "It is a common misconception that this is a cost-cutting measure and ambulances will be taken off the road, but that is not the case.

"There will actually be more ambulances for fewer jobs. We have a duty of care which we take incredibly seriously."

The initiative will not be introduced in Teesside until late summer because of technical changes which have to be made to the Middlesbrough control room.