Adventure Bike Rider Forum

Please sign and circulate

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/259892

I've not signed this as a few years ago I was talking to a few of the people who work on the North West air Ambulance service and they all said they'd rather stay as a charity and find their own funding.
Very controversial I know but it means they are in control rather than having government funding and then having it controlled or cut, plus all the other hoops they'd have to jump through if they were a government funded entity.

It wasn't an in depth discussion and I'm sure there are many arguments for and against but it shows there are always two sides to consider.

Also I'm not telling people not to sign, I'm just offering an alternative view that I was shown by people who work in the service.

Steve

Ditto the central counties was the same they were concerned that they would not be able to make their own decisions on working practices and funding etc. May be worth contacting your local Air Ambo and asking their views

Signed. It's simply unbelievable that essential, life-saving emergency services are dependent on charitable donations. Same with the lifeboats. What a country...

Re. the concerns above - well yes everyone wants their service to be funded reliably. The crazy thing is that in days gone by (not all that long ago actually) charitably funded services would have loved to have been taken under the wing of government funding because it was regarded as solid reliable funding, especially if ring-fenced as an essential service.

Since austerity, services previously considered vital or at least very important have had their budgets slashed.

But the principle that something as fundamentally important and life-saving as air ambulances and lifeboats should be paid for out of central taxation is surely clear. Also, take a look at what can happen when an unexpected crisis event hits the fortunes of a charity - Oxfam's donations have plummeted since the Haiti aid-workers scandal became well-known. It would only take some rogue fund-raiser for the air ambulance service to be caught siphoning funds, as an example, for public confidence in the charity to disappear and the service to be cut back suddenly for lack of funds.

I respect your opinions, I posted it response to an appeal from a lady who lost her sister and partner in a motorcycle accident in Drifield area despite the best efforts of the great north air ambulance and she launched the petition.
I don't know the wishes of the air ambulance groups but my personal opinion is it's bad that they rely on charity, there should be government support funding in some form or maybe lottery funding not neccessarily control.

All ready signed it the other day

I’m inclined to the independent route.
The RNLI manage exceedingly well and there is more likelihood of Joe Public needing the air ambulance.

As soon as any government gets their hands on it it will go the way of police and ambulance funding....down, down, down.

There are a handful of very successful charities that are run like large corporations and have self-sustaining deposits, the interest/income from which is enough to keep the charity funded. Guide Dogs for the Blind is notably over-supported, with massive reserves. Not saying the cause is wrong at all, but they receive so much income from investments / bequeathals and sales from merchandise etc that they don't actually need fresh donations to tick over.

I don't know the state of the air ambulance service's finances, but personally I would rather my life-saving extrication from an accident was not funded by the vagaries of those who choose to put a quid in a shaker, or not. When central government funding for something is threatened by the treasury, it is usually flagged up in a spending review 3 years before, argued about within government / civil service, protested over by interested parties, subject to a strike in protest by the relevant union, reviewed, re-assessed, often cancelled for political reasons, sometimes reduced, softened or re-negotiated. By contrast a charity surviving from one month to the next stands to collapse quickly, completely and catastrophically as soon as it fails to glean the donations it needs to function. Many UK charities collapse each year, leaving the beneficiaries of their work high and dry. E.g. The Kids Company - doing work that should arguably have been done by Social Services - now defunct.

Greetings,

I should like to know what the opinion is of those who organise the various air ambulance charities. To this end I carried out a quick internet search and found the following link. Would anybody mind if I wrote to them to ask their opinion and sought a possible quotable reply?

https://www.airambulancesuk.org

TTFN

Hugh.

I have no problem Hugh it was not my petition, I was just asked to pass it on which I did.