Enthusiastic volunteer for Scotland's Charity Air Ambulance, Dave Barwick, joined us on Tuesday 2nd November to speak to us about the organisation. With his English twang and dropping of the letter "R", he joked about a medical organisation with the acronym "SCAA". A joke that wouldn't work if a Scot told it with their rhotic pronunciation!
Dave spent 35 years in the oil and gas industry and is now a veritable James Bond being a member of the Institute of Advanced Motorists in both four and two wheeled motor vehicles and is also a private pilot!
A very interesting talk and some impressive figures were given around response and transfer times, which I'll scratch the surface of below.
Dave informed us that there are a total of six air ambulances in Scotland - two fixed wing and two helicopters that are owned, funded and run by the NHS, and two helicopters funded and run by SCAA that are manned by NHS paramedics and flown by pilots supplied by Babcock Mission Critical Services (Onshore) Ltd.
Although SCAA are external to the NHS, they are an integral cog in the machine that is the 999 Emergency Services along with British Association for Immediate Care Scotland (BASICS), Scottish Trauma Network, Emergency Medical Retrieval Services (EMRS), HM Coastguard, Police Scotland, RNLI, Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS), Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, Scottish Mountain Rescue & Community First Responders.
Dave informed us that 96% of Scotland's population can be reached in an hour or less by SCAA, which is clearly life-saving when you take into account "The Golden Hour" (which medical professionals now say is the golden forty minutes). Whether this be getting Paramedics to a patient quickly before land-based ambulance arrive or providing Paramedic care before transporting the patient to a hospital. Dave also said that, while an ambulance will take you to the nearest hospital, SCAA can take you to a hospital that will have the best specialist care for the patients' needs.
In 2020 SCAA responded to 460 emergency call outs, 47% were to trauma cases and they have responded to over 3,507 time-critical call outs since going live.
Twin-engine Eurocopter EC135s – HELMED76 based in Perth and HELMED79 based in Aberdeen can cover all of Scotland in 75 minutes, 96% in less than an hour. They also operate two ground based rapid response vehicles.
From call out to airborne with Paramedics onboard is all within 5 minutes – and we saw the real time video to prove it!
Each helicopter call-out costs approximately £2,500. Dave told a story of where someone donated £100 to him on the promise that would go towards saving a life. And, while that hundred pounds would indeed go towards saving a life, In reality, £100 pays for 6 minutes of fuel, so many hundreds of pounds are needed to run the service – estimated to be £4 Million annually.
So, while SCAA is an integral cog in the machine that is the emergency services, it receives no Government or NHS funding and is entirely privately funded by about 60% corporate partner and 40% charitable donations. The latter through individual or regular donations, their “Life Saving Lottery” (Play | Scotland's Charity Air Ambulance (scaa.org.uk)), donated services, merchandise, trusts and foundations.
Pictured is Dave with club president Brian Johnson and Dave’s host for the evening, Ian Brown.
