UK Air Ambulance ops funding

[mr chopper]

Dear All

Does anybody know why air amublance operations in the uk are mainly public funded , why are they not government funded . Surely this would be better solution ? .

Any help would be appreciated .

Rgds

Mr Chopper :confused:

[Epiphany]

Dear Mr Chopper,

Her Majesty's Government has a few financial concerns at the moment. Probably not a good time to ask Old Chap. Come back next year and we'll see what we can do. Thank you for your interest.

[Whirlygig]

why are they not government funded . Surely this would be better solution ? .Not if the Government decide to cut the funding.

Cheers

Whirls

[Dantruck]

Define 'better,' ...better for whom?

They remain predominantly charity fuelled precisely because of a lack of government funding. And, as the man says, that's not about to change.

Dan

[g-mady]

Well the "national lottery" is essentially another "tax",

and part of these funds help pay for many HEMS operations...

MADY

[ShyTorque]

Well the "national lottery" is essentially another "tax",

Possibly a voluntary tax for the eternally hopeful?

[handysnaks]

When so many people voluntarily give their money to an organisation like the Air Ambulance, why would the Government replace that funding with a tax?

[Mike Rosewhich]

Search for a copy of the government funded report

"A review of the Costs and Benefits of Helicopter Emergency ambulance Services in England and Wales. Sheffield University 2003"

If you want more information PM me.

[Bertie Thruster]

Well the "national lottery" is essentially another "tax",

and part of these funds help pay for many HEMS operations...

As far as I know the National Lottery does not help fund any UK HEMS charity.

[g-mady]

Not directly no... Charities such as "Magpas" though do recieve funding...

MADY

[jayteeto]

Imagine that we were government funded, we would be talking about which units are going to close down and ministers would be saying that response times would not suffer during the cuts!!!

[PANews]

For all the reasons above the independent charity funded air ambulances should remain just that. In recent months there have been numerous instances of government interference in officially funded air ambulance operation across the globe and though the only Government funded air operation in the UK [Scottish Air Ambulance] is not dire it does occasionally display a tendency to show its untreated roots.

At the moment, even with charity money showing a tendency to slow, bar one the UK air ambulances are in a pretty good shape to survive the downturn and should hopefully come out the other side without cuts.

The same cannot be said of anything with government finger marks on it.

[wallsend]

PANnews - hear, hear to all that. Can we stop this one now? Please.