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Aviation History
1987
1987 - 2280.PDF
Britain's first emergency- medical helicopter has saved lives and increased the effi ciency of ground-based ambu lances in south-west England. But after six months of trials the programme came close to being abandoned last month because of lack of cash. Ian Goold reports from Cornwall. Pictures by Janice Lowe. Ten minutes after a young man had been admitted to hospital in Ply mouth with serious head injuries, following an accident in the Isles of Scilly, he suffered cardiac arrest and "died". Medical staff were able to resuscitate him and to remove a blood clot from his brain. He is now out of hospital. Ambulance men called to attend a badly burned young girl near Newquay realised immediately that she needed more help than they could provide. Within minutes of her arrival at a burns unit, specialists were praising those who had carried her there so quickly. She was released after two weeks and did not need plastic surgery or skin grafts. In both cases, prompt attention in hospital was available because of the First Air Ambulance, an emergency-medical helicopter service run by the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Health Authority in con junction with Bond Helicopters. A three- month trial based at Truro's Treliske Hospital began on April 1 this year with the health authority underwriting the operation. It was supported by investment from Bond Helicopters and BP, which provided fuel. The project was extended to August 31, and subsequently to the end of the year, but came within a hair's breadth of being discontinued on October 21 when the authority met to discuss a projected £1 million overspend across all its services. It was only saved because that very morning a sponsor—Spalding Sports Equipment & Wear of Cambridge—agreed to underwrite the trial in place of the health authority. Such was the support for the First Air Ambulance that members of the public held a "coffee morning" to raise funds, and telephoned Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to seek assurances that the service would not be withdrawn. Using helicopters as ambulances is, of course, not new. Emergency-medical service (EMS) helicopters and aircraft have operated in the United States for 15 years, and national networks fly in other countries. In Britain, the idea had been mooted for 20 years, but never received formal backing from health authorities. "There has been no national interest in hospital helicopters, despite the interest of specialists in trauma care," says accidents and emergency-care consultant Nigel Sell- wood, who is in charge of casualty services in Cornwall. Establishment of the First Air Ambu lance followed months of discussions in 1986 after specialists in health-care and First-aid fl helicopter operations had fortuitously made contact with each other. Geoff Newman, a former Royal Navy pilot, wanted to talk with health officials about a hospital helicopter, and contacted his local health-care officials—the Cornwall Ambulance Service. Chief Ambulance Officer Len Holden, to whom he spoke, had harboured ambitions to establish a helicopter ambulance since the 1960s when he served in Essex on Britain's east coast. Holden had already spoken to helicopter manufacturer MBB at an exhibition in West Germany. Meanwhile, Bond Helicopters had been looking at the possibility of such services in the UK and was gathering information when the Cornish authority began to seriously consider a service. In Britain, the provision of hospital, ambulance, and other health-care services 22 is managed locally and within strict budgets provided by the government. The Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Health Author ity has a network of more than 30 hospi tals, a similar number of health centres, offices, and clinics, and 17 ambulance stations. The Cornwall Ambulance Service provides transport for any in the district who have a medical need. Almost 250 staff run a fleet of 78 ambu lances (plus a team of about 200 hospital car drivers), carrying up to 250,000 patients, and covering almost three million miles a year. The service is compli cated by the scatter of Cornwall's popu lation. More than half of the people live in one third of the county, from Truro to the west. (Cornwall has good weather by British standards, the extreme tip of the peninsula getting the best of the warm Gulf Stream waters around the south-west FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 7 November 1987
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