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Paramedics were today gearing up for their busiest-ever shift — with one alcohol-related incident expected every two minutes during London’s biggest party night of the year.

Medical chiefs have urged Christmas revellers to drink responsibly and avoid putting extra pressure on the over-burdened London Ambulance Service. This week the Standard spent a night with a paramedic crew on shift as office workers hit the town.

Shortly after 11pm a call came in reporting that a woman in her fifties had been found unconscious at a McDonald’s in Oxford Street. She had been at her company’s party and told paramedics she was so drunk she did not know how to get home to north London. After she asked for the ambulance to take her home, one paramedic replied: “We’re an emergency service, not a taxi.”

Eventually she was taken to A&E at University College Hospital. The paramedic said: “This is the exact reason our services are under so much pressure. We try to look after everyone but where we can, we try not to send drunk people to hospital. We can offer to pay for a taxi to take them to a hospital so our crews are available to deal with emergencies quicker, but sometimes people just don’t see that as the best thing. They think being sent to a hospital will be a magic cure for them. That’s not always the case.”

Outside McDonald’s a group of young women sat in pouring rain dressed in Santa hats and reindeer antlers. As some started being sick, one paramedic went to offer them water.

Last year, LAS responded to 36 per cent more alcohol-related incidents in the run-up to Christmas — 239 a day compared with the daily average of 175.

There were 736 incidents over the weekend before Christmas. The LAS is supporting the City of London Corporation’s “Eat, Pace, Plan” campaign which recommends eating before drinking and having a soft drink or water between alcoholic drinks. LAS chief operating officer Khadir Meer said: “Historically it’s the busiest time of the year, and this year we’re seeing that demand earlier — last Friday was one of the busiest we’ve ever had in our history.

“The ask to Londoners and visitors is to pace yourself, eat, and plan your journey home. We often get calls about people who are unconscious and what you won’t know is what that relates to, so we have to treat that as an emergency and prioritise that call.

“We don’t want to have to come out to people who have drunk too much because that means we can’t get to those with more serious conditions.”

Emergency services are under pressure nationwide this Christmas. On Wednesday a mother aged 47 died in South Wales after waiting six hours for an ambulance on a pavement.