Great North Air Ambulance
The Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS) operates three helicopters based at Teesside, Cumbria and Northumberland.
It has been proven time and time again that helicopters are vital for the transportation of time-critical injured or ill patients to specialising hospitals, and it is the aim of GNAAS to provide the people of the north with the best quality care available to them, which is what they deserve.
Patient care is, of course, and will always remain, an absolute priority for GNAAS. It takes an average of one hour for a seriously ill or injured person to see a consultant. It takes GNAAS an average of 15 minutes to get a consultant to a seriously ill or injured person, ensuring that the people of the region receive the highest standard of clinical care available to them.
GNAAS provides a 7 days / week, 10 hrs / day helicopter emergency medical service - HEMS - that provides:
· Primary medical response
· Secondary medical response
· Acute hospital transfers
· Specialist medical team transfers
· Support medical services for police firearms teams and mountain search and rescue teams.
· Emergency medical training.
It costs approximately £1.2m per annum to operate ONE helicopter.
However, the helicopter is only part of the overall cost of providing an Air Ambulance Service. The costs, relating to the clinical and operational aspects of the service, comprise the helicopter lease, flying hour charge, fuel, pilotage, unscheduled maintenance, landing fees, hangarage, insurances, medical crew, equipment, medicines, consumables and operational bases. To remove any one of these, the charity could not operate a helicopter emergency medical service - HEMS.
