Air ambulances struggle with obese patients

An air ambulance. Photo: Ronnie Robertson. 

New air ambulances will be designed to accommodate the growing numbers of obese patients requiring the service.

Head of air ambulance services Andy Moir said bariatric patient transfer was an “increasing challenge” for the current fleet.

Addressing the community safety and resilience board on Wednesday, Mr Moir said the coastguard was sometimes required to transport the very largest patients.

“Some of the challenges are not around the overall weight of the patient, the aircraft can cope with that, but it’s about the physical dimensions,” he said.

“Our fixed wing aircraft are relatively narrow and there’s an emergency gangway right down the middle so that limits the overall width of any single patient that we can transfer.”

Mr Moir said new aircraft and helicopters which were being sought as part of a procurement process would be expected to cope better with larger patients.

Other procurement priorities include environmental sustainability.

While Mr Moir said the ambulance service was not yet looking for electric or hydrogen powered aircraft, suppliers would be asked to support cleaner, quieter operations.

He said “sustainable aviation fuel” would also be a consideration.

Learning from the lessons of the pandemic, Mr Moir also said the new aircraft would be designed to enable better separation between patients and flight crew.

He said the current fleet had encountered major challenges at the height of the pandemic.

At one point, Loganair was asked to provide a temporary solution so that Covid patients could be transferred safely.

“There have been a number of lessons learned and we will be looking to incorporate those in the procurement,” he said.

The procurement process is expected to see a contract awarded by next summer at which point there will be a transition process to the new fleet lasting for a maximum of two years, completing no later than June 2025.

The current fleet operates from Glasgow, Aberdeen and Inverness, flying around 3,800 missions a year.

Mr Moir said the majority of its work was routine and urgent patient transfers which was particularly relevant for island communities.