I think the problem stems from not singing off the same song sheet, I’ve been dispatched on quite a few HEMS tasks that lay closer to SAR bases than ours and have called Kinloss to suggest that it may be beneficial to send a Seaking. But in the long run it just confuses the whole issue by involving too many chiefs- Ambulance control, Police, RCC, Air ambulance control desks etc etc. and no one seems to have the balls to make decisions regarding helicopters as I’m sure to a control room operator dealing with aircraft it must be quite a major piece on the chess board to handle.. Still it always looks impressive when SAR, air ambulance and Police ASU turn up having been dispatched due to lack of coordination.
As for the suitability of SAR over air ambulances, I’ve also attended many incidents where we have arrived, packaged the patient and left the scene only to hear that a Seaking is inbound to the same incident after it is all over.
Once winches on air ambulances have been introduced and the multi million pound machines start spending more of the day out of the hangar than in (day/night VFR/IMC), I’m sure that emergency services helicopters in Britain will be a very effective force on par with our European counter parts operating in the Alps etc.....
Russell
P.s And before anyone starts harping on about winches again, just think of the flak that must have been encountered by suggesting we take people to hospital by helicopter in the first place, after all you could have a brand new fleet of land vehicles for the price of a helicopter….