On the face of it, a reasonable questioning of whether the air ambulance is used for frivolous cases, although I’d prefer to allow the emergency services to make the decision as they should have the necessary experience and what may seem a no-need case may have expensive consequences for the NHS in general if the minor injury has an impact that results in a long-term care bill.

Not sure about the charge for an ambulance though – thin end of the wedge for a service that is paid for by NI and tax anyway; it may be more useful if the NHS screened on a case by case basis and simply refused to send them when there was no need, although due to insurance suits, they tend to be over-cautious, and who can blame them?

To give a different viewpoint, it may interest people to know that the air ambulance in Switzerland is also run free of government money, but in that case, it is run by subscription. Anyone who feels that they may need its services can buy a subscription every year at about, I believe, £30. If you are a subscriber, you get the air ambulance services free of charge. If you elect to call one and you’re not subscribed, then you pay or you get your insurance company to pay. Seems to work well enough, but then that’s in a country where there is no free of charge health service anyway, so people are used to being insured or subscribing and, yes, paying does make them think about whether they really do need to use the service or not.

Where I feel that charges could be made is in the field of mountain search and rescue. If people are going to go off walking or climbing, then they should buy a (walker’s) liability insurance to cover them against a subsequent charge if they needed to be searched for and rescued when the weather closed in or they got lost. I hear of too many people going off when bad weather is forecast and then needing to be rescued because they did not have the right equipment or experience. However, even in search and rescue, I would not suggest charging if it was a case of injury that necessitated the evacuation.

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This letter writer has a very limited knowledge of what goes on in the Ambulance Service and also a very simplistic view of the world too.

Agreed – the Ambulance Services throughout the UK are plagued by timewasting calls. Blanket charging everyone £50 is a complete non-starter; presumably this person is one of those who never thinks he or she will require an ambulance!

As for the person airlifted with a ‘broken ankle’ – that may have been the reported injury once the casualty had been treated in hospital ( I don’t know the case the writer is referring to), but that may not have been the situation reported to Ambulance Control at the time.

Calls to persons with ‘cut fingers’ are NOT dealt with as Category A (ie life threatening) calls requiring an 8 minute response; they are triaged by the Control Centre and unless other factors are present, calls like this would never be responded to “within 10 minutes” unless the ambulance crew happened to be round the corner and no other 999s were pending. These days, that is frankly unlikely – all ambulance services are stacking calls, whether life threatening or not. Incidentally, there are very few Ambulance Services which currently have the luxuty of a ‘do-not-send’ policy, which would have to be clinically tried and tested (as well as approved). Most Services would love to have this ability…with appropriate safeguards in place!

The key is people being far more aware of what constitutes an ‘emergency’. It would seem that far too many have no idea (and care even less). A lot of people dial 999 simply because they “have no money for a taxi” (or don’t want to pay for one). Drink-related calls are of course a major problem.

How – and who – decides who should pay a charge for an ambulance? Hopefully not someone like this letter writer, who of course (it hardly needs to be said) hasn’t the courage of his or her convictions to reveal their name!

Isn’t that always the case?!

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Actually it was me who had the fractured ankle, plus other serious injuries!! Thats right Simon i think when emergency services were called they advised i had hit my head too, an ambulance arrived and confirmed it would be better to wait for the air ambulance due to the nature of my injuries, im just glad i had people with me to help me prompty, i was in horrific pain – thats right Matt, people who make this ridiculas comments should come forward – i will tell you exactly what it’s like to be in an incident stranded with no help – id just like to say a massive thankyou to everyone and the crew that day…i appriciate everything you did for me, perhaps if this person were to have an accident they may appriciate the quick service provided!!!

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There must be some way of categorising the severity of accidents.
Having heard of the people who dial 999 because the cat was miowing, as reported on Radio, should be severely fined.
They should also be made to do “community service” time assisting in treatment of real casualties.
These dumbos should be made to realise what a real emergency is.

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Despite the cost of running the helicopter, which I am sure is ongoing regardless of whether it is called out or not,surely it is also advisable to provide the aircrew with ongoing training opportunities and you’re not going to get those sat on your backside at Cosford.

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Re the comment about ambulance charges being passed to insurers in RTAs, in fact, whilst hospital charges are sometimes reclaimed where the injured person has already succesfully claimed compensation from an insurer, typically ambulance charges are not reclaimed, and although there is some leeway to claim ‘NHS costs’ this rarely happens – the whole ‘charged for ambulances’ thing is a bit of a urban myth.

As for the idea that individuals can specifically call the Air Ambulance, this isn’t the case of course. You call an ambulance – which type turns up is based solely upon a climical assessment at the time.

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The problem here is the letter writer is hearing a snippet of the whole story and making a comment which he/she has the right to do.
As with people who bleat on about all these benefit claimers we do not know all the facts we on the whole assume and in many cases are way of the mark.
As for charges etc well perhaps the national health service needs to be looked at and with the volume of people now useing it in the uk should charges for certain things should now now be made in order to ease the burden.Perhaps our NI nad taxes are not enough perhaps we should be made to pay more lets face it we will never give what we are not forced to when it comes to taxes etc.

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As an ex A&E nurse, I can categorically say that the majority (that I can recall) of air ambulance cases we had in WERE in need of airlifting. For instance should you be unlucky enough to break anything whilst walking on the Long Mynd, horseriding or involved in an agricultural accident then a land ambulance may be unable to reach you, and I would rather have someone airlifted in because they were traiged by the Ambulane Service as a high priority and then re triage them as a lower priority than have someones death or permanent disability on my mind. Get well soon Claire X

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Hi Florence – thank you for your kind comment. – Also i totally agree with everything you have mentioned….
Joan – im sorry to hear about your accident, i myself was out in the open and miles from help, i too thank my lucky stars for such a wonderful prompt servce and shall do everything i possibly can to help the charity, been as it has helped me so much, i wish you a quick and speedy recovery, i know how painful it is braking/fracturing your ankle. Claire xxx

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