On 9 Mar 2013 21:25:07 GMT, Bob Eager wrote:

So how many better trained and equipped paramedics could there be if
the air ambulance money had been spent on them?

Irrelevant. More staff doesn't get the patient to the operating
theatre any faster.

It does if an increase in staff means they are not so thinly spread.

How does more staff handle a traffic jam? Air ambulances are often
deployed where a road transfer would take too long.

Quite, and it doesn't have to be traffic just the distance and the roads.
Seems that many posting in this bit of the thread are townies and expect
a paramedic ambulance to arrive in 5 mins and they are only 15 mins by
road from an major A&E department.

The nearest A&E to here is 40 mins away in a car, without traffic,
motoring well. Ambulance with patient on board will be much nearer, if
not over, an hour. The roads are mostly narrow, single carriageways, with
many blind bends. If truck comes the other way on a straight bit you
breath in, meeting on a bend makes the heart beat faster... Oh and you
will have waited about 40 minuets for the paramedic ambulance to arrive
in the first place.

The nearest A&E isn't a major trauma A&E either. The nearest of those is
over an hour by car... Flying time to the major A&E is a couple of tens
of minuets, if that. Flying time in is hardly enough to warm the engines
up properly as one of the GNAS helos is based 10 miles away. B-)

As for spending the money on more paramedics so they can reach any part
of the UK land mass in say 10 mins. You'd have an awful lot of very bored
and very skilled people sitting about doing nothing virtually all the
time. We did have a (singular) paramedic based on The Moor for a while
but they hated it. 1 (One) call a week on average is not exactly what
they spent years training for. There was some talk of rotating them
round, come out here for some peace and quiet after taking the physical
and verbal abuse from the vomit covered drunken clubbers in the center of
Carlisle for a couple of weeks. I think that was far too radical for the
suits in charge...

The paramedic was taken away, it really was very hard to justify. We
still have, just, an Ambulance and first responders but the NHS Trust
(ha!, "trust" wouldn't trust 'em further than I could throw 'em) wanted
to take that away as well. Damn suits looking at the age of the ambulance
and the qualifications of the first responders and not seeing them serve
any useful purpose with out spending money. Their minds have been changed
once it was pointed out that the average response time for an ambulance
off The Moor to here *is* 40 mins and that some one will die if they take
away even the limited local service. We'd also make sure the media knew
the background if that did happen as well... Some one with half a clue
and basic kit is better than none at all, particularly for the best part
of the "golden hour". I think they are going to spend the money on
upgrading the vehicle and some more training, but it's all gone
worryingly quiet...

--
Cheers
Dave.