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Old 14th May 2018, 17:53
  #47 (permalink)  
Geoffersincornwall
 
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Cornwall
Age: 75
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Hawkeye - In Saudi we faced a situation where each hospital was established for a particular clientele and if you were not in that particular 'club' then the ambulance would be turned away. A 'joined-up' service requires everything else to be 'joined-up'.

We can all sit back to a certain extent and rest on our laurels for enough time has passed - 31 years now - to forget just how hard it was to get HEMS off the ground in the UK. No sooner had the announcement that we would begin the service here in Cornwall than the naysayers were at it. There were doctors and clinicians of all kinds taking up the cudgels. There was a bitter struggle to get through to the start-line on April 1st 1987 intact and it is down to the fortitude and clever political manoeuvring of the local NHS managers that we survived. At one stage even the D & C Police tried to head us off before the start date. The deployment of the Air Ambulance apparently threatened their plan to acquire a second machine for use in Cornwall (their B0105 was based in Devon at that time).

It wouldn't surprise me to find that similar tales of tribulation involving the kind of internal and external battles we experienced also featured in all the other Air Ambulance Units. One day someone will document the pathway our HEMS services have taken. They have apparently created a new branch of UK medicine called PREHOSPITAL CARE. Their story deserves to be told.
G.

Last edited by Geoffersincornwall; 14th May 2018 at 18:09. Reason: additional info
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