Who gives a t*ss how much it cost, who took it or why?
OK Before I get flamed to death here are some thoughts..
People on this forum are always bleating on about how overstreatched the RAF Air transport fleet is.....there are a limited amount of resources to go round, and an even more limited number of transplantable organs...
In the UK we have a co-ordinating body that is supposed to promote organ donation, match up donors with bits and arrange for transportation.
Now the complicated bit.
It costs MONEY to get surgeons to corpses and organs to people, if the Airforce are doing it every day thats fine I have no issues with that, other than the fact that as a taxpayer, it costs over twice as much for the airforce to do the task as it does civil air, thus we can only do HALF the number of operations. (even if you claim its "training")
If its a question of response time, several UK civil operators can get airborne in 40 mins, to keep that capability costs money if the airforce are going to do these jobs then as a civil operator there is little point in keeping the capability so it gets dropped. Now when UK transplant call up there are no civil aircraft avaliable at 40 mins because they are under utilised so they have to go begging back to the RAF for help.... a vicious circle ensues and the Beurocrats in the Airforce start charging 12K an hour for the herc and even fewer transplants get done.
Flying surgical teams around is not a core military capability, no one is going to shoot at you, it does not require any specialist skills, your too expensive and it diverts military resources that should be elsewhere.
As I said elsewhere, if the transplant co-ordintaion people had tried ever civil operator and they were ALL busy then yes a last chance call to the airforce is justified.
On the other hand if Gt Ormond Street are having to call ASCOT directly themselves there is a serious problem at UK Transplant.