From complaints about hair-dye fails to requests for cigarettes, police have had to deal with some unusual 111 calls in the past year.

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Police receive more than 850,000 calls a year, of which only 20 percent result in an emergency response.

They're hoping fewer people will call them with non-emergency calls in 2018.

Police have long been getting a number of people who call 111 with no actual emergency to report, but 2017 saw some particularly strange calls to the emergency line.

One person rang the police when she couldn't turn off the TV, while another phoned wanting officers to buy him cigarettes because he had run out.

A woman dialed 111 after a failed hair dye job, as her hair colour was not the same as on the packet and she wanted a refund.

A caller's flatmates were being noisy and they wanted to go to sleep so they called 111.

Another caller asked police if they could send help, because she didn't like the smell of vomit and her husband had been sick.

Police said it was calls like those that were clogging up the emergency line and could cause delays for someone in a life-threatening situation.

They were reminding people to only call police in genuine emergencies.

When to call 111: