Who decides where the helicopters go?

The short answer is one of 3 specially trained controllers in the ambulance control centre.

The long answer is that both aircraft normally operate with a pilot and two paramedics although volunteer doctors sometimes fly as well. It is tasked from a dedicated HEMS Desk operated by despatchers who have undergone additional specialist training as well as regular familiarisation flights with crew.

They are based at the South West Ambulance Trust (SWAST) control room in Exeter where they monitor all the calls coming into the service in order to identify the jobs where the helicopters will make a real difference.

The charity's Trustees set the criteria for dispatching the air ambulances and the HEMSdesk dispatcher at ambulance control decides which patients meet the criteria on a day to day basis.


The type of incidents we attend are extremely varied and include both trauma and illness.
We break down these into further categories. Trauma could include multiple injuries, head injury, penetrative injury or broken limbs. Medical emergencies range from heart attacks, strokes or asthma attacks to anaphylactic shock.

The bottom line is that the aircraft must be offering something additional to what the statutory ambulance service must: either expertise or equipment on scene, or speed with which to get the patient to the right hospital for definitive treatment.

Since the Hemsdesk went full time last year our monitoring reports show that we've seen a significant improvement in targeting what are inevitably very expensive resources to the right jobs. We'll never eradicate the jobs where we get stood down halfway there. If we did it would suggest we were not responding quickly enough to potentially life-threatening situations which may turn out to be harmless - I for one don't want to feel responsible for putting saving fuel over the benefit a few minutes can make to a patient's life (not to mention their family and friends) should they be needed as suspected.