Progress for helicopter emergency service

  BMA Northern Ireland has welcomed the news that the country is a step closer to having a doctor-led HEMS (helicopter emergency service), the only region of the UK not covered by such a service. Announced this week by the health minister Simon Hamilton, the air ambulance will be based at the International Airport in County Antrim, with patients flown to the trauma centre at Belfast’s Royal Victoria Hospital. The air ambulance will be named ‘Delta 7’, the call sign used by local motorcycle medic John Hinds, who long campaigned for the HEMS. Dr Hinds died last year in a motorcycle crash at a race in Dublin where he was providing volunteer medical support. A motion calling for BMA Northern Ireland to lobby for a Government-funded and doctor-led HEMS was passed unanimously at the BMA’s UK consultants conference earlier in March. Welcoming the health minister’s announcement this week, Anne Carson, chair of BMA Northern Ireland’s consultants committee, said she was delighted that the service would be led by doctors and supported by paramedics.   Welcome announcement ‘The BMA is very much in support of a HEMS as Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK which is not covered by such a service as part of a trauma network,’ said Dr Carson. ‘We of course very much welcome this announcement by minister Simon Hamilton and look forward to working with him on this in the future.’ UK chancellor George Osborne recently ...
Source: BMA News - Category: UK Health Source Type: news