Speed camera fines to fund "charity"!

[Cyclic Hotline]

Cash-strapped air ambulance seeks surplus funds from speed camera revenue

A crisis-hit charity air ambulance says cash from speed cameras should be used to help fund its operations. Two helicopters in Northumberland and Cumbria were grounded in February, after the Great North Air Ambulance Service revealed falling donations. The organisation blamed high-profile flood and Asian tsunami appeals.

But now the charity says a share of cash from highly-profitable speed cameras in the region, could help its long-term survival. The charity's chief executive Grahame Pickering, said he needed £300,000 a month to keep all three aircraft flying. He said he was against charging for rescues and urged the government to allow regional police forces to divert a proportion of cash raised from speed cameras to keep the life-saving service airborne. Mr Pickering said: "People hate speed cameras and hate being fined but they are here to stay. But it would be good PR for the police and people would find it infinitely more acceptable if part of the speeding fines was going to the organisation that saves people who are the victims of speeding. But we are told the money is ring fenced and has to be spent on road safety initiatives. Speed cameras alone in the UK could pay for air ambulance services, full stop."

The charity's Pride of Cumbria aircraft began flying just eight months ago. The Northumberland \ircraft was the organisation's first and began operations in 1994. Both are suffering a shortfall of about £20,000 a month, according to the charity. A third helicopter operated by the charity from Durham and Tees Valley Airport near Darlington, is covering the entire region.

Steve Callaghan, manager of the Cumbria Safety Camera Partnership, said: "The Treasury manage any surplus revenue generated from speed cameras, but in principle I would support cash being used to support the air ambulance. "This is all about casualty reduction and it seems reasonable to me that money from cameras be used. We have a lot of rural areas here, as does Durham and Northumberland and it is important that we get casualties to hospital as quickly as possible and we can't often do that by road."

A spokeswoman for the Northumbria Safety Camera Partnership added: "In principle it would be a good idea to use the surplus revenue in this way." The Home Office said it could not comment on the issue until after the general election.

[SilsoeSid]

I can see this being a 'Hot Topic'! :ouch:
"Speed cameras not revenue making machines". etc etc

I would see a lot of public resentment and a fall in donations, if it were known that air ambulances were being financed by speed cameras.

Figures from todays D.Mail, 42% of all drivers have points. 48% of drivers aged 41 to 50 have points.(That'll be me then!!)

I don't know, but perhaps someone knows what age group is more prolific in donating to air amulances. If you are going to do it, do it. But I would suggest putting the collection tins in the store cupboard. All well and good if Northumbria gets so much money from their partnerships cameras, but what about the other units around the rest of the country?

What I don't get here, is the managers of the Northumberland & Cumbria Safety Camera Partnerships say they support this. Is their job Road Safety or Air Ambulance funding? :confused:

Perhaps they could spend their time suggesting that helicopters be sited near to accident blackspots for a quicker reaction time, instead of attempting to catch us all out at non speed related accident blackspots.
Bigger question, Why doesnt the treasury finance Air Ambulances anyway?

IMHO, a shot in both feet on this one. :ugh:
The Home Office said it could not comment on the issue until after the general election. And the comment from the Home Office is.............


SS
:rolleyes:

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

Why Air Ambulances are charity funded in a major Western economy is beyond me. They should be centrally funded - full stop. I saw a couple of guys from London Hems rattling the buckets outside my local shopping centre recently. I really felt sorry for them - the RSPCA woman had the right arsehole !!:(

[cyclicmicky]

I have been told that the Air Ambulance operations in certain areas are a full time operation run by a company that charges the charity for its services.
The way it works is as follows;
The aircraft and it's crew are full time professionals who attend accidents and carry out the required medical/ paramedicals as per all medevac aircraft............nothing wrong with that. I salute and have enormous respect for all SAR and medical emergency crews.
What makes me wonder is....a company operating a helicopter..usually an Augusta or of that ilk, which is not cheap to fly and crew with a doctor and paramedics, would they attend only major accidents or would they radio watch and go for the least that they could get airborne with!!!.
Remember that it is a commercial operation charging a charity!!
It leaves me with all sort's of questions.
I sincerely hope that my information is wrong, because having seen charity helo's fall short of funding it would seem to be that the authorities should come up with the said funding.
Aircrews do a superb job in this situation, the funding to save a life should not come into question.
It becomes questionable when a charity, is not really a charity, but a front for a commercial operation.
Once again, I hope what I have been told is incorrect.
With the highest regards for all SAR and medic crews,

Micky.

[Helinut]

The Department of Health doesn't fund them in England and Wales because it says they are not cost effective, in essence. [Please don't shoot the messenger]. Some considerable while ago there was a post here that referred to a study carried out for the DoH. It was rather heavy going but illuminating, and anyone interested should read it. It is a report by the Medical Care Research Unit of Sheffield University - I have a pdf but cannot remember the web source site.

It is true that the majority of HEMS are provided by one commercial operator. They provide the aircraft, pilot and engineering support. I believe that all paramedics are provided by the local Ambulance Trust/Service, because of a central government edict. The non-paramedic costs of the air ambulance are provided by the local charity - the terms of the contract between the charity and the operator will be the subject of a normal commercial negotiation, but I understand that what jobs they go on are usually determined (or at least requested) by the Ambulance Service Control. The profit motive is there, but control of what jobs are taken on should lie with the charity and Amebulance Service, so I do not see any fundamental problem.

It won't get any votes from the Police, but we tax payers already pay for an emergency service helicopter, the majority of which are under-utilised. Very few police helicopters operate HEMS, which seems to me to be a shame.

Sadly, Cumbria now has neither a Police or HEMS helicopter at present. It seems strange; although Cumbria will have a smallish population, you would have thought that it was ideal country to make good use of a helicpter for the emergency services.

Given some of the crazy things Lottery Fund money gets wasted on, why don't we use some of that for HEMS?

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

don't get me started Helinut !

[Brilliant Stuff]

In Germany they have worked out that every Deutsch Mark they spend on the HEMS unit they save 3 Deutsch Marks in the Hospital.

Golden hour and all that.

Regards

BS

[Bertie Thruster]

I understand the National Lottery will not support UK HEMS as the charities concerned already have "government support" in the form of NHS Paramedics as operating crew.

[212man]

In some parts of the country they could use ambulance drivers to pay the fines, which would have a certain irony! (was it Lincs, last year?)

[B Sousa]

Here in the states Im watching this and wonder how they could even get off the ground based on "Donations". HEMS in the states over the last few years has become the biggest employer of helicopter Pilots and Crew. What is it they may be doing correct that is not being done in the UK?? Why would it not work in the UK??
Not to knock things as we have problems here, but Priorties for the UK taxpayers money seem to really be off base.

[Droopy]

It's a completely different financial setup here Bert; medical care free at the point of delivery, very little privately/insurance funded work in the provision of trauma care. Also, the geographical nature of the UK can mean that some areas are really quite well covered by A & E [ER in the US] services. That's where the main thrust of the aforementioned academic work lies, in that yes air ambulances in the UK can make a difference but sometimes that difference is quite small and therefore hard to justify funding from the state.

Our area for instance has 7 A & E departments for a relatively modest area and population. The local air ambulance is on ten hours a day and responds about a thousand times a year; I don't know the rate of cancellations/non-serious tasks but to be honest that shouldn't bother the ambulance authority because the service is paid for by local people. The local police unit, empowered to respond to serious cases for the other 14 hours a day, for free, has been used by the ambulance authority 12 times in the last 4 years. Despite efforts at the local level, inter-emergency services management co-ordination remains very poor, at least in our area.

[Helinut]

Droopy,

To be fair to UK Police Units, we should say that a normal PAOC actually prohibits a police helicopter from being used for "ordinary" HEMS. They can only be used for the special case of CASEVAC (which more or less means a quick scoop job to save a life).

It may not be the only answer, but some of the differeces between the UK and USA relate to the aviation regulations. UK more or less requires a twin, and is effectively daytime only. The obsession with engine failure in the UK permeates most of what little we are allowed to do.

Obviously, in the UK we have a different setup for health. At the moment, in England & Wales the public think that HEMS is already provided by the NHS - this does not help one bit. (It is in Scotland, but they always seem to do things differently there, using taxpayers' money from the rest of the UK, of course). If ever they are asked, the politicians and NHS Managers hide behind studies like the one I referred to that basically say the cost-effectivenes of HEMS is unproven. In a cash-strapped setup lots of ambulance and even medical people think NHS money would be best spent on ambulances, ambulance crews, more medical people and wizz machins for hospitals that save lives. There are major vested interests at work.

It is not helped at all, when you hear of some (hopefully isolated) cases where HEMS are squandered on daft tasking, for one of a variety of reasons.

[Droopy]

Helinut,

With regard to your first paragraph, not quite; police aircraft can do patient transfers, blood/organs etc as well as casevac, but without a HEMS approval none of it can be chargeable, and because the freedoms for landing sites etc excluding the casevac case are often impractical for short notice events, then casevac is all the police end up doing.

The charitable status of our local air ambulance seems fairly well known, I can't really comment about the rest of the country.

Daft tasking? We all suffer from that - as I'm sure you know the average police unit turns down at least three quarters of the the requests that come in. It's just slightly depressing that because of the lack of joined up emergency services, you can have one government funded service available H24 and a charitably funded one available 10 hours each costing about the same, working about 4 hours a day between them, rarely airborne at the same time. Go figure.