Night Landings for HEMS
 

http://www.surreyad.co.uk/news/2024/...d_to_nighttime

Acording to the above, night landings are go from tonight in a Police Machine

Is this a first (in an ambulance role) in UK?



Mickjoebill

no its not a first,

It was on the local tv news and i was a little disappointed in the reporting it comes across as something new and funded by the aa charity.

sussex police have been flying with a paramedic for approx 16 years, although i am open for amendment on the actual time, so have been providing cover for quite a while in their county and beyond if it was needed.

wiltshire also used to provide the same capability for many years although not sure nowadays someone else may be able to clarify?

The difference is in the night capability. To do HEMS, as opposed to casevac, at night, I believe you have to have a twin pilot IFR set-up unless you have a special exemption for operating in an area which provides minimum problems in terms of obstacles, mountains etc. I am ready to stand corrected, but I think that wil be the case with this operation?

If you look at the article it says "Police helicopter equipped with life saving equipment"..so its not really HEMS.

Say again
 

I thought I was asking a simple question :) is this the first helicopter in the UK that will do off base night landings in a HEMS role?


Mickjoebill

Simple answer.... No.

Ahhh night adhoc landings... :eek:

Thanks!


Mickjoebill

In simple terms....what is the difference between Casevac and HEMS in the UK. In the USA we use a singular definition.....HEMS is Casevac is HEMS.

We provide 24 hour service. We use NVG's. We land at ad hoc sites at night.

If the operation is conducted in VFR/VMC conditions....why the phobia about landing at night or even flying at night for the purpose of transporting critically ill or injured persons?

Casevac, in this sense mainly refers to Police helicopters transporting critically injured patients, life or death, on a very infrequent basis and the more restrictive regulations covering this are in the PAOM.

HEMS flights by Air Ambulance whether under a PAOM, in the case of a joint Police/Air Ambulance unit or an AOC, by day or night are for the transportation of patients, not necessarily critically injured, not life or death.

Air Ambulances in the UK are still in their infancy compared to the established operations in the US. I'm sure that eventually the UK Air Ambulances will be able to provide the same service you guys do across the pond. The caution shown in the UK shouldn't be misinterpreted as phobia we're just getting the walking right before we try and run!

:eek: is how I sometimes feel when I'm asked to do the ad hoc landing thing on those dark stormy nights, without NVG.

:ok:

We used to do some night HEMS in the UK, in unstabilised 355's with night suns fitted.

Then the rules changed.

Any police helicopter in the UK CAN do Casevacs. In essence, these are flights where "it is judged" that but for the use of the helicopter, the casualty would be fairly likely to die. Its all in the PAOM. This can include night Casevac, where they land ad hoc rural. Police heles do not carry a paramedic.

In practice, some units do quite a lot of Casevac, others none or virtually none. Partly disposition, partly to do with their patches. There are interestingly different interpretations of what Casevac means in practice. I am not sure how (paramedically) untrained police crews are supposed to be able to judge the state of a casualty that they have not seen............ In practice they don't of course.

SOME UK police helicopters have a HEMS approval. This allows them to do HEMS (no surpirses there). A paramedic is part of the crew. At the last count, there were 3: Sussex, Wilts and N Wales. Some police helicopters with a HEMS approval can ask for permission to do night HEMS. Of the 3 above, Sussex and Wilts have that approval. N Wales do not. This is essentially because of the terrain in N Wales and the (lack of) ambient lighting in most of their patch.

SASless, remember we operate in a parallel universe over here.

IMHO, it will be many years before there is night HEMS (non-police) in the UK. The CAA will be VERY cautious about it. Just think how long it took them to allow NVG above 500 ft for police work........ In the liability-obsessed world in which we live, the guy who agrees to allow night HEMS for air ambos will feel very exposed. I am not agreeing with such an attitude - just recognising it for what it is.

If you believe the politicans fiddling with our health service, there will be more urgent scope for hospital to hospital transfer. The "plan" in the UK is to move to far fewer A&Es and have a relatively small number of super-trauma centres. Flight transfers between lits surveyed sites are even permitted in the UK. All we need to do is to get the hospitals to convert some of their car parks back to helipads.

and therein lies another completely separate thread, should AA/HEMS be charitable operations.

I think a hospital would rather have a car pk than a pad. Very little financial benefit to the individual NHS trust from having a helipad.

Just for the record Sussex operate under a HEMS approval as part of their PAOC. They carry the full set of medical role equipment that is normally carried in an air ambulance, as well as the police role equipment. A paramedic is always carried as the second observer, he is also trained to support the police observer on police tasks. Night ad hoc landings are only carried out following a map check for wires and a thorough recce of the site using the Thermal Imager and Nightsun.

Sussex have always carried out HEMS operations, carrying a paramedic as part of the crew since 1989. Initially by day at weekends and Bank Holidays, then full time by day since Jan 1991 and by day and night since Sep 1993.

The latest arrangement with the HEMS charities merely allows Sussex to extend the night service that they have offered to the people of Sussex for many years to cover Kent and Surrey. The existing daytime arrangements with the Ambulance Service for day HEMS within Sussex remain unchanged.

:ok:

In one of my former lives, we used to do about 15 CASEVACs per year on the Police Helicopter. To mitigate the risk we would contact the paramedic at the scene to ascertain the condition of the casualty. Only if it was truly life-threatening would we transport and then only to a regional trauma centre.

Do these Police aircraft carry Oxygen, de-fibs, heart monitors, blood gas sensors, and qualified Paramedics to do intubations and administer drugs to control pain, breathing and the like? Or are they more like stretcher toters with basic first aid equipment?

Yes. No.

Regards, BT :8

The Yorkshire Air Ambulance has had "extended" hours flying since they got the MD902. The "New" MD902 is fully capable of Night flying but I haven't heard of them using it yet.

Bertie, you're surely only talking about the [3?] joint police HEMS units - the other 90% of ASUs offer basically rapid transport.

SASless,

The police units that are HEMS approved carry pretty much the same gear as a pure HEMS aircraft (including a paramedic).

The non-HEMS police heles carry a variety of medical kit, sometimes including things like defibrillators, but not usually stuff like oxygen. They do not carry paramedically trained crew, so there is little point in carrying that equipment. When they are deployed to a CASEVAC, the normal SOP is to dump one of the observers at one point or another. They pick up a paramedic with the casualty, who brings what he/she feels is necessary from their land ambulance. I don't think anyone is saying that a CASEVAC police helicopter is in any way a repalcement for a HEMS machine. It is used as a last ditch option. Sometime there is no HEMS or to supplement the HEMS provision. However, CASEVAC can often make a big difference to outcome.

These days in the UK CASEVAC is probably more often than not at night. As has been stated previously, our UK regulations do not, in practice, allow HEMS to do ad-hoc landings at night. Whatever the reasons, no non-police UK HEMS is done at night at present.

In Scotland there is a rather different system from England and Wales. Different set of politicians, so they buy an air ambulance service includng helicopters for the Health Service. The heles operate 24 hours, but I believe that they do no HEMS at night, just transfer type flights.

As Paracab suggests, the distorted world in which UK hospitals operate produces some strange results. As things stand if you convert a hospital helipad to a car park, you not only generate revenue from the car parking, but you PREVENT very seriously injured (i.e. expensive) patiemts from draining the respurces of your hospital by becoming your responsibility when they arrive by helicopter :ugh::mad:

I imagine that other systems like the US have different pressures.