Weekly Lunchtime Meeting

Lincs & Notts Air Ambulance

This week Faye Nam came to speak to us about the organisation and work carried out by Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire Air Ambulance Service.

25th Year of operation

The Lincs Air Ambulance Service was started in 1994 and joined with Notts is 1997 to combine funding.  The service currently has an operations base at RAF Waddington from where the helicopter travelling at up to 200mph, can reach any location in Lincolnshire within 12 minutes.  The patient can then be delivered to a specialist hospital at Hull, Sheffield, Derby or Leeds within 8 minutes, depending on the nature of the illness or injury.

Operations Base

Each flight comprises a pilot, copilot, doctor with pre-hospital skills including surgery/anaethsetics and a critically trained paramedic.  The service is supported by motorcycle volunteers to help ensure that blood is available at the scene if needed.  There are on average about 1000 call outs per year which equates to almost 3 call outs per day.  These are mainly road traffic collisions but the incidence of stabbing injuries is seen to be increasing.

Funding

The service costs GBP2.5M per year to operate, it does not receive any government funding and relies solely on charitable donations. The money goes on funding the helicopter which is leased and the salaries of the full time medical staff.  Therefore the cost of each call out equates to round GBP2500. There is currently a demand to increase the scope of service with a projected need for around GBP4.0M per year in funding.

Following her talk, President Chris presented Faye with a cheque for GBP600 from the proceeds of the supermarket collections this Christmas.