Medevac service improved after 'worrying' incident

Guernsey's airline has conducted trials to improve its medevac services following an incident where a man had to wait two days for one.

87-year-old Martin Smith from Alderney could not travel to the island after he suffered a heart attack because the only option for medevacs was unavailable as it was stuck in the Isles of Scilly due to poor weather.

Aurigny said after successful trials it could now use the new Twin Otter planes for transfers.

Philip Smallwood, chief operations officer at Aurigny said "services are now fully operational" after Alderney, Guernsey and Southampton received the stretcher lifts required to facilitate the safe transfer of patients onto the aircraft.

Smith's granddaughter Jo Woodnut said it was "a bit worrying that it takes two days to get a medevac" and a better process needed to be brought in.

"This isn't taking two hours, this is taking two days" which she said could significantly impact "the realistic chances of survival in some cases".

"It's not been very long since the Dornier has stopped flying, and that's the scary thing, it's only been two or three weeks and we've already had potentially a life threatening medivac delayed due to the lack of a plane."

Smallwood said: "Unfortunately, in the instance over the weekend in Alderney, medevac was unavailable due to weather in Land's End preventing the Islander from flying to the Channel Islands; this meant boat transfer was deemed the most appropriate solution to ensure that the individual concerned received the necessary treatment and support."

He added that the Islander aircraft remained available to be used, in an event of technical issues with the Twin Otter.

Dermot Mullin, director of operations for Health & Social Care said he understood the concern caused and that the Twin Otter planes would provide greater resilience in the future.

"We want to reassure the community that contingency options, such as boat or helicopter transfers for emergency cases, are activated when needed to ensure urgent needs are met."

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