Master Caution starts flashing when confidence tricksters start using sob stories to strip huge amounts of money from the giving public's much-pressured disposable income for no proper purpose.

HEMS is actually great value compared to SAR until it’s 0100, cloud base is 200’ and vis down at 1000m and someone needs whipped out of a remote site for primary care.

LZ

Those taskings few and far between when you look at the total taskings HEMS units attend vs SAR. Inland it’s the jobs only SAR can get to, so usually rural/mountain where critical care cars can’t get to, most HEMS units have cars 24hrs that are still tasking all night that SAR don’t go to.

SAR absolutely have their place in the emergency response network, good job there’s still someone to do it at 0100 200’ and 1000m as you say, but if SAR responded as much as HEMS, the taxpayer would have a far bigger bill.

Interesting livery and paint, seems like it would be a bit camouflaged against a blue sky...but then again, it's not always blue skies in Blighty

Negative Nada according to current economic thinking. A figure of £2million, or approaching that figure, has been around for a while as the cost to the state of an accidental death. It has been used by the Crown Office, Network Rail, Health and Safety Executive, and then in 2020 during the initial engagement phase of UKSAR2G by the MCA's Assistant Economist, Katrina Eastwood, who quoted it as the Department for Transport Value of a Prevented Fatality.

I had used the figure back in 2018 to answer a question about the cost of SAR helicopters. 2600 jobs per year, 1800 persons assisted, estimate 1000 persons genuinely saved from death, £2m x 1000 = £2bn, which is enough to pay for both fixed and variable cost parts of the entire 10 year contract from the savings in the first year.

That's economics as opposed to the bad accounting that provides most people with a completely different answer.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....4a23e4daed.png

(Why would a government that uses these numbers not sweep away all these "entrepreneur" blood suckers and run a state HEMS service?)

So by those economics, let’s say EACH Air Ambulance service does the same 2600 jobs per year (some do much more), that’s also £2bn saved to the taxpayer PER service. Currently there’s 21 AA charities in the UK. So that’s £42bn saved to the British Taxpayer, as well the the government not having to foot the bill for the actual operation either, the public fund it willingly outside of taxes.

As you say not every job is a life saved, AA UK say it’s an average of 100 jobs per day, so 36,500 jobs per year. Generally accepted that 40% of HEMS work is genuinely life threatening. That still works out at £29.2bn

SAR is obviously great value for money, but HEMS blows that out the water.

People ARE the economy. :ok: If you let all those components of the economy die := then it is not a good thing. :rolleyes:

Value of a prevented fatality, or Value of Statistical Life (VOSL) as it's known in other jurisdictions, is not a bad way to measure the economic contribution of a HEMS service. However, if the economics line up, why doesn't the UK GOV operate a nationwide service, with the synergies of a rational fleet model and centralised support, rather than leaving the role to charities all operating different types?

Coz that worked really well with NPAS didn't it!!!

Why should the UK gov operate a service at taxpayers expense when the charities are tripping over themselves to do it!

Goodness some interesting numbers being thrown around here. The £2m per life ignores the fact that most employers simply replace a lost employee. The insurance industry make often take a hit but it is separately funded. Equally the idea that HEMS saves 100 lives a day is in sharp contrast to the Sheffield study which showed that London HEMS saved 2 lives a year due to having a doctor on board. The figures are further complicated by the tremendous change in land ambulance capability and the reduction of industrial and transport trauma over the years. Heart attacks, often used as an example of lives saved, kill a third as many as in 2001. HEMS is a useful add on to the ambulance service but as with the rest of the NHS economic justification is a non starter. We do it because a civilised developed country expects the best medical care available, not because it saves money.

Religious conviction to the great god of capitalism. We know from the example of many of the world's most successful nation states that maximising effectiveness needs a balance of capitalism and socialism. The UK electorate just don't get this. Additionally, being trapped in the anglosphere prevents them from breaking free of American mistakes.

I refer you back to my previous comment re the RNLI being the ideal model upon which to base any such national service. As OvertHawk pointed out, the NPAS experience didn't go well - although there may have been an element of deliberate downgrading of the service... what other explanation could there be for the utter farce?

T&B,

I don't disagree with you, or OvertHawk, but just because NPAS was a sh1tshow doesn't mean a similar model can't be rolled out, ever.....

Some are not happy at the idea of using such figures. One well known Austrian rescuer that I discussed this with was absolutely horrified at the idea of putting financial values against human life. However, I have always found this arithmetic useful for shutting up fascists, neolibs and other assorted nutters.

But why?

The NHS and ambulance services are already in a massive crisis and can't fund what they're already committed to.

The existing AA operators are, largely, doing a good job - albeit with some discussions about personalities and value for money. (I think that a little more robust handling by the charities commission would be helpful on some operations).

People are choosing to support them.

The NHS has neither the money or the expertise to take on AA and if the government tried to impose it there would be outcry from the public about taking over "their" much loved Air Ambulances.

Having seen the personalities and inefficiencies at work in both the charity AA sector and the NHS I'm certain that we're better off with the status quo than anything that could be provided by .gov.uk

I agree - what SAR and HEMS provide is often immeasurable, but we live in a world ruled by accountants and need some form of yardstick - its not absolute, but as you say, useful.