Building...

The face of Thirsk is gradually changing – the skeleton of the new base for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance has been erected on the footprint of part of the wartime Skipton on Swale RAF base (co-incidentally, the site of the old medical centre) and a new local headquarters for the NHS Ambulance Service is emerging behind the Lidl Store on Newsham Road.

Fundraising continues for the helicopter base, and for its heroic activities. There is a conflict, I would call it an irony, but it is far more important than that, between an ambulance on the road, and one in the air, which is that since both of them are “free at the point of delivery”, the costs of one are part of the taxes that fund the rest of the NHS, the latter entirely by charitable fund raising.

I don't know how much financial loss and suffering is alleviated by the ability of a medical team to literally drop from the heavens wherever a remote emergency arises, providing first aid in the “golden hour” after an accident, heart attack or stroke, but there are calculations of the costs of a serious road accident which might provide a guideline.
















(To read the rest of this article go along to your nearest stockist and buy a copy of the paper)