The Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance: Some Interesting Data About this Well-Known Charity

FIRST LAUNCHED: March 2000 at Sherborne Abbey  and based at Henstridge.

OPERATING COSTS: £1.2 million per year (£3,500 per day).

FUNDING: Fight for Life Lottery, Legacies, Donations from Societies such as Round Table, Lyons, Freemasons, Rotary, Carnival committees etc. Gift Aid - tax back on donations. Sale of Air Ambulance merchandise, collection boxes, collections at stores, Recycling - clothes, shoes, textiles, phones etc. This scheme generates £1,000 per week.

CHARITY STATUS: No funding by Government or National Lottery. The Sheffield Report in 1991 stated air ambulance service in UK unnecessary. The Government is unwilling to foot extra cost involved; considers existing NHS emergency ambulance service adequate. Therefore it is totally reliant on charitable funding as above.
 
PARAMEDICS: There is typically a pool of 14 paramedics and they usually work for the air ambulance 4 days a month. Otherwise they are on road ambulances. The rota is such that there is one paramedic from Somerset and one from Dorset working on the same day.

MEDICAL EQUIPMENT: Rather more medical equipment is carried on board a helicopter than in a normal road vehicle (see link for full list).

OPERATING HOURS: 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Winter 8 hours a day, Summer 10 hours a day. No night flying.

MISSIONS: Average 2 - 3 per day, can be up to 8 per day in summer.

ADVANTAGES OF HELICOPTER: Speed to incident, access to casualties in remote locations.   Speed to hospital. Direct transfer to specialised units (N.B. by road patients all go to the nearest hospital regardless of injury.)

DETAILS OF A TYPICAL MISSION: See link.

HELIPADS: Helipads or close landing facilities are situated in Bournemouth, Weston Super Mare, Exeter, Bath (in Cricket field by Royal United Hospital), Frenchay, Odstock, Taunton (in the pipeline), Yeovil - Westlands airfield and Poole.

To learn more, click here: http://www.dorsetandsomersetairambulance.org.uk/

Annette Plaistow-Trapaud

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