Paramedics will soon be able to refuse to visit non-urgent patients who call the emergency 999 number -- freeing up their time for patients who are in a critical condition.

As part of a national scheme, Oxfordshire Ambulance Service now has the option to give advice over the phone or refer callers to other health services, rather than deploy a crew to treat them.

Managers said their workload was always increasing, with no extra funding to handle a rise in calls. They said the new scheme would allow ambulances to respond to more important jobs. Union leaders have also backed the initiative.

About one fifth of the one hundred 999 requests received daily by the service's control room staff are not life-threatening.

Known as category C calls, they include patients with conditions like minor wounds, tooth or earache. But until now paramedics still had a duty to respond to them.

Under the new system, an experienced paramedic will be based in the control room to talk to patients who do not need vital or immediate treatment.

They will be able to offer alternatives, such as NHS Direct services, GP or pharmacy advice, or a visit to one of the county's minor injury units.

OAS operations director Damian Jolly said calls were split into three categories -- life-threatening calls, which ambulance staff must respond to in eight minutes, and less urgent and non-urgent calls, which paramedics must attend in 19 minutes.

He said: "Now, we will be able to respond to category C calls in the most appropriate way.

"The type of things that come through are falls with no injuries, on-going back pain where the patient doesn't know who else to ring for help, and the silly ones -- like someone getting their finger stuck in a corkscrew.

"As calls increase year on year, with no additional funding, we have to do something about it.

The key thing is that this new system will free up more ambulances to attend urgent calls.

He added: "It's important to note that we will respond to some of these non-urgent calls. If the paramedic who is given the call believes there's a problem, they will always send an ambulance.

"We will still err on the side of caution if there's not enough information."

Adrian Trew, a Unison representative for OAS workers, said: "I think this is a brilliant idea. It deals effectively with what we're trying to do to categorise calls, so we can attend real emergencies.

"We ask a set of questions to callers, so if there is any suggestion that it could be something serious then we're in a position to respond. We certainly aren't going to put anyone's life at risk."

Although OAS has started the initiative, it will officially begin in October.