Meeting April 5th 2006 
Hampshire Air Ambulance
A talk by Maggie Gwynne

Report by Brian Foord

29 members were in attendance on this fine spring evening. Graham made the parish announcements including news of our new website www.shhas.co.uk, a forthcoming Raes talk and that our next meeting in May will be our AGM. He then introduced our speaker for the evening Maggie Gwynne. Maggie was standing in for the advertised speaker Christine Shaw who was unable to attend.

Maggie gave a presentation on the Hampshire Air Ambulance or perhaps to be precise the need for a Hampshire Air Ambulance because as yet we do not have one! She is one of a team dedicated fund raising administrators who are at present trying to drum up funds to get this service established and to get ongoing funding to keep it running when it does start.

At present there are 22 Air ambulances in the UK covering most areas. Bedford and Hampshire and the Isle of Wight are about the only two areas that do not have this facility. They are all run by public funding and donations with the exception of Scotland where the Goverment deem that the terrain and road transport infrastructure is so poor that the need for an Air ambulance is warranted and supply the necessary funding.

The campaign to obtain this vital service was launched at Beaulieu on 25th October last year and is well on route to reaching the target. When in service the helicopter will be based in Southampton - Lee on Solent area and will be able to cover any part of Hampshire and the Isle  of Wight within 15 minutes  of being airbourne.

The aircraft will be a Bolkow 105 helicopter leased from Bond Helicopters who will also supply the pilot. The remaining crew members will be doctor and a paramedic or two paramedics who will also act as navigators. It is hoped that the paramedics and their training will be funded by the NHS. The cost of keeping this service running is estimated to be £65000 per month. The aircraft has provision for two strecher cases loaded from the rear and is better equipped with all the latest life saving technology than its 4 wheeled road counterpart. It has a speed of 140mph and stay airbourne for 2 hours on one 450kg load of fuel and is expected to average about 4 sorties a day.

The benefits of such a service are obvious with roads becoming ever more congested and the ability to get to places where it is not possible for land vehicles, patients get expert treatment far quicker. In Europe where Air ambulances have been the norm for the last 20 years they have proven that because of this, patients take up less time in other areas of recovery than they would normally e.g. intensive care units. The service does have its limitations in that the CAA will only permit flying within hours of daylight and that any emergencies that occur over the sea is covered by the Air Sea Rescue.

The main source of funding is the "The Flight for Life lottery". Other means of getting funds include collections at shows and functions, donations, organising specific fund raising events and corporate sponsorship which Maggie pointed out are not that dependable as they can be stopped at any time.

It was more of a promotional talk than the specific aviation related ones that we normally have but judging bt the response at question time and the rattle of coins going in the collection tin it was enjoyed by all who attended. I am sure we all wish them every success with this very worthwhile venture.

Thank you Maggie for a very informative talk and thanks to Graham George for arranging it.