THERE were more than 100 incidents when ambulance crews accidentally filled vehicles with the wrong fuel, new figures reveal.

North West Ambulance Service (NWAS), have had124 ‘misfuelling’ incidents since 2012, costing £30,600.

Nationally, there were at least 769 incidents of ‘misfuelling’.

Freedom of information responses obtained by The Sunday Telegraph found affected ambulances were out of actions for days and in some cases weeks at a time.

John O’Connell, chief executive at the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “'These findings are very concerning, both to patient safety in these ambulances and the wider lack of care towards public property.

"Taxpayers expect their money to be spent wisely, especially when the very sick are most in need to care and attention.

"We all appreciate the very difficult work these drivers do, but they need to stamp out these mistakes."

A spokesman for NWAS said: “On very rare occasions, our crews make the age old mistake of putting the wrong fuel in our vehicles.

“This is simply accidental and although we do have devices in place to try to prevent this and make sure that the fuel type is properly signposted and highlighted to staff, sometimes these things just happen.

“Last year, there were 19 occurrences of misfuelling which is extremely low considering we attend over one million emergency incidents across the North West every year as well as a further one million patient transport journeys and have a fleet of around 1,000 vehicles.”