As one of the people who may possibly benefit from the increased duty hours and a contributor to the charity concerned, this is very welcome and well done to all concerned.
This has been done before and some interesting things came out. There was very little trade before 9 am and after 9 pm, and of course there are only a few months of the year where you can get the full 16 hours. Certainly we found that the 12 hour shift would be the best practice.
What concerns me about this operation is the abuse by the ambulance service and particularly the way that they can cheat the ORCON targets by writing off a job, normally in a remote area, to the helicopter. This results in an increase in activations but a sharp fall in the number of patients carried as a proportion of call outs.