.......A minority of HEMS missions are truly life-saving but you never know that this is going to be the case until later. Crucially the difference between a successful outcome and an unsuccessful outcome is often the level of care the HEMS team can deliver and if you dilute this in any way - yes in ANY way - you risk the latter.
It is so tempting and so attractive to put these two roles in the same box but the reality is, I suggest, totally the opposite. It is the politicians convenient get-out. We can't really afford it but......... wallop! two for the price of one and Robert's your mother's brother ...... that will keep those do-gooding bunch of wingers off our backs.
We have a unique funding arrangement in the UK where the majority of HEMS are financed directly by the public through donations. Try asking for hand-outs for your local Constabulary Aviation Unit and see what joy you get. I suggest that it is the Cops who are up against it here so in effect somebody is doing a very good sales number on the folk of Sussex that results in their HEMS Op being second rate. I say again, ask the Sussex Ambulance Trust if they would like their own machine, assuming of course that the funds were available to support it.
One of the least understood ways in which the HEMS chopper makes the Ambulance Service more effective is its contribution to the logistical equation. If you sit in the control room day after day you can watch the random nature of the job. In no time flat you have no resources available and a serious RTA to deal with. Not only can the chopper cover your entire area but it can also help to move non-serious cases out of the system more quickly. In the more rural parts of the UK an ambulance can be out of the system for 4 or more hours dealing with a moderately serious patient's trip to a General Hospital. In the meantime the guy who has a heart attack snuffs it because HIS ambulance (the one covering his area) is away to the bright lights.
I could go on but I would bore you. As for night Ops well that could be solved overnight if we made all HEMS flights a part of 'Government Operations' and took them away from JAROPS 3. There is nothing special about Police Helicopters, they just have the benefit of the POM. Don't get me going on that one.......
CKD