Iron - my comments have nothing to do with SARH - CHC are currently trying to train paramedics to become winchmen, something many of us feel is the wrong way of doing things.
SARH will have to take fully trained winchmen (a lot from the Services) to start with and will have its own training setup at Valley to train new ones.
I have been involved in training helicopter rearcrew quite a lot over the last 28 years, from SH crewmen at Shawbury to winch ops and winchmen at SARTU and door gunners at Middle Wallop - if you don't think that gives me the right to comment on training practices then I dont know what will.