The hospital offers a prompt reliable and highly skilled service
The hospital offers a prompt, reliable, and highly skilled service. He says that wasted calls will be gradually filtered after the control room at Waterloo installs a computer system to screen callers and prioritise patients.Resistance from the ground ambulance crews is harder to handle: some do their best to obstruct the service. Many are interesting or publicity-attracting cases, rather than straightforward road accident victims. Could this be cherry-picking, he wonders?The Royal London, Dr Bree says, has the most experienced trauma team in London Flying the patient back to base also saves vital minutes.
Nearly two-thirds of patients admitted to hospital are taken to the Royal London. Figures for 1993 show that a third of the 1,000 annual missions (each costing about £1,000) are wasted because of hoax calls, the patient dying on scene or cancellations.Hems is also guilty of intervening "inappropriately", claims Dr Sarner. Far better to spend the money "squandered" by the helicopter ambulance crew on restructuring the London Ambulance Service. "God knows, it needs it," he says.Figures released by the Royal London Hospital seem to support Dr Sarner's argument. During winter the helicopter is called out an average of four times a day, yet it still costs a fixed amount of money to run. The other was from a man who had been lifted off a railway track after an attempted suicide.
"I've realised that life is worth living," his letter said, in a shaky scrawl, "even though I have lost an arm."But Hems has its enemies, too. Dr Martin Sarner, chairman of the consultants' committee for University College Hospital, is one of its most vocal opponents. He says that the money spent on the service (£1.5m a year, almost entirely financed by the Department of Health) could be better directed at modernising the control room at Waterloo, investing in better management personnel, and improving the lifesaving skills of London's ground ambulance crews.A small number of ground ambulance paramedics feels the same way "Hems is an expensive gimmick," says one. When the roar of the helicopter starts up, six floors above White-chapel market, heads turn skywards. Former patients are also keen supporters.That day the Hems team had received two letters, one from a woman who had been raped and stabbed on a south London common "Thank you for being so kind And thank you for saving my life," she wrote. "Early intervention improves thepost-accident survival rate and shortens the hospital stay," Dr Bree says.
With hospital beds costing up to £2,000 a day, fast recovery is beneficial to all.People in east London are proud of the service offered by their local hospital. The idea is that the helicopter can bring the hospital to the roadside within minutes. Within a year the helipad and helicopter were launched at a cost of £5m.Most of the patients referred to Hems are picked from the 999 calls coming into the London Ambulance Service control room at Waterloo. But unless a doctor is there within the "golden hour" the chances of complications occurring escalate.Richard Earlan, a consultant at the Royal London, presented the report to Express Newspapers. Immediate diagnosis, preferably within the first hour, is important if secondary injuries such as brain damage or paralysis are to be avoided.The importance of the 60 minutes following injury was first recognised by the Royal College of Surgeons in 1988. A study commissioned by the college found that one in three accident victims died because they failed to receive attention during the crucialfirst hour.Simple treatments such as clearing the airway and feeding the patient with fluids can save a patient's life, explains Dr Bree, who has worked with Hems for five months.
Couldn't ground ambulance paramedics have managed without him? No, Dr Bree says. "She could have had severe head injuries." In the event, shewas found to have blood in her ear and a possible fractured pelvis. Enter the Royal London Hospital's helicopter at Wood Green, north London, scene of a traffic accident The helicopter touches down lightly Two men jump out and run to where blue sirens are dancing. The crowd of macintoshes, shopping bags, and peering, inquisitive faces pulls back: Steve Bree, 28, rushes through. Across his back is written the magic word:"Doctor". "Hi, Steve Bree from the Royal London How can I help?" he says.