H500 et al
Perhaps as the designer of the original modus operandi of the Cornwall AA I can enlighten you a little.
During the daytime (we are talking 1987) we had 17 emergency ambulances covering the county of Cornwall. At night this reduced to 11. Our problems were many but the main ones were:
1. Clinical - in that we only had 8 extended trained ambulance men (call them paramedics but that title didn't come until years later) so delivering that high level of skill countywide was only possible using the AA.
2. Logistical - when vehicles were sent on a call (all 999 calls had to be responded to in those days) the crew could be taken out of service for anything up to four hours given that our receiving hospitals were so few and located at Truro and Plymouth. During those four hours dealing with what may just be a broken finger or a nosebleed a patient in the now vacant area may suffer a heart attack or stroke. We met this challenge by having a three layered plan - a. HEMS style first responder b. secondary transfer in which the AA rendezvous with the road ambulance at a pre-surveyed site and delivers the patient to hospital leaving the road ambulance inside its normal area. c. tertiary inter-hosital transfer.
Chucking rocks at the AA for carrying low-level injuries has to be a cheap shot but one we expected and were not disappointed. People's ignorance of the realities of running an ambulance service has to be expected but once the situation has been explained most seemed to a accept that a rapid resolution of all 999 calls is the best all-round solution. You never know what the next call will be. The overall efficiency of the service as a whole was our design aim but I observe that this principle is nowadays often sacrificed to satisfy the rock-chuckers and give the AA charity a peaceful time even if this does not serve the public who finance the AA as well as it might.
G