Rotor Rescue Reform

Following what was an extensive and highly competitive threeyear tender process against strong competition, the Northern NSW Helicopter Rescue Service, an amalgamation of the Newcastlebased Hunter Region Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service and Lismore’s Northern Region Westpac Life Saver Rescue Helicopter Service, was awarded the northern region contract. The community-supported teaming will continue to provide helicopter operations covering associated areas around Newcastle, Tamworth and Lismore.

Interestingly, transport and logistics provider Toll Group was announced to replace incumbent contractor CHC Helicopters Australia (CHC) to service the southern region of NSW and the ACT from bases at Orange in the state’s central west, Bankstown and Wollongong. Toll will also become the service provider for the Canberra-based Snowy Hydro SouthCare rescue helicopter, which CHC has provided helicopters and aircrew for under contract since its inception in 1998. “There were two independent aviation auditors as part of the tender process who looked heavily into all of their aviation experience,” said NSWA executive director of health emergency and aeromedical services Dr Ron Manning. “But suffice it to say, Toll, as part of this process, has mustered a very experienced EMS team to manage this contract.

While its existing operations may not have a lot of EMS background, its management team and frontline operational team it has put together certainly does. ” Following the contract announcement, CHC was quick to express its disappointment about helicopter rescue and retrieval services in southern NSW and the ACT being awarded to a new operator. “We have operated emergency aeromedical helicopters in New South Wales, the ACT, Victoria and Western Australia for more than a decade and we understand the value of this service to the community,” said CHC regional director Nick Mair. “Rest assured that there will be no let-up

The helicopters will be available when required with no cap on flying hours.

in our commitment while we are still operators. ” Since gaining its NSWA aeromedical contract in 2007 from local NRMA CareFlight and the Southern Region Westpac Lifesaver Helicopter Rescue Service, amid community outcry and much public scrutiny, Canadaheadquartered CHC has conducted around 14,000 missions. “CHC has executed this current contract with full professionalism and we have no complaints,” said Dr Manning. “But a procurement process is a procurement process and it ended up where it did. It’s certainly not a reflection on its operational capability or otherwise, so we have been very pleased with CHC’s service. ”

AW139 workhorse

A new fleet of 12 standardised AW139s will be used across both contract regions as the helicopter of choice. Dr Manning said a review board considered a number of type options including a potential new generation of helicopters. “One of the specifications we were very keen on was to maximise Performance Class 1 options,” said Dr Manning.

“The AW139 came up trumps in this area so it was the prime determinant of the preferred helicopter type. We wanted interoperability and flexibility.

Having a like fleet across the state was important to Ambulance and we wanted to stick with a helicopter that met the specifications but had more of a track record. ” Having already operated the AW139 with CHC since 2007, NSWA has a lot familiarity with the type, not only from an aviation perspective but clinically as well.

“A key part of the reform was howcould we configure the helicopters to maximise what we need to do, but also to ‘future proof’ it,” said Dr Manning. “Because if we exercise all the options it could be 15 years that we’d be operating these helicopters. Clinical and medical equipment is not going to remain the same over that time, so we need to have the internal fitout in a way that can be grown with the needs of the patients and the improvements in medical equipment without having to spend lots of money to reconfigure it in the future. ” The factory-new AW139s will be NVG capable in lieu of being fitted with a FLIR camera system.

The 139s will also be fitted with a Goodrich 272kg, 90m rescue hoist and will not be fitted with a searchlight.

New bases and machines

The contracts will see five new bases built with some existing basesrefurbished or extended. For the northern region contract, a brandnew base will be constructed at Lismore Airport, a short distance from the current base located on the banks of Wilsons River. The new facility is expected to be completed in December 2016.

Tamworth, will receive an extension to its current base, which was originally commissioned into service in 2000.

In Newcastle, the service’s maintenance and administration will remain at its current Broadmedow site in the centre of Newcastle, while its flight operations will move into a brand new facility to be built at Belmont Airport, Pelican, on the eastern shore of Lake Macquarie by November 2016. A consortium of companies led by Matt Hall Racing acquired the derelict Belmont Airport in June 2014.

For the southern region, the service at Orange will move into a new purpose-built base at Orange Airport, due for completion and operations in March 2017.

CareFlight (NSW) originally established a helicopter rescue service operating from Orange Base Hospital in August 2000, which was subsequently taken over by the current contract in May 2007.

In Wollongong, south of Sydney, a new base will be built at the Illawarra Regional Airport, Albion Park Rail, where the service there presently operates from a shared section of the Historical Aircraft Restoration Society’s hangar. The new base will be commissioned in January 2017.

In the ACT, Toll will take over the current Snowy Hydro SouthCare base at Hume, close to the NSW border, south-east of the city centre.

The community helicopter service has operated from its Hume base since its inception in October 1998.

For the Sydney service, a new base will be built on a greenfields site at Bankstown Airport a short distance from NSWA’s current facilities and adjacent to Heliflite, Australia’sAgustaWestland distributor. The operations base will be constructed in the north-west corner of the airport, wrapping round behind a bus depot on the airport’s perimeter road.

Areas of operation

The area of operations for each of the helicopters and the clinical services they support is not going to change. Moreover, the new contracts will give NSWA the capacity to do more within the scope of its current operations. Under new contract arrangements, a doctor will fly on board every mission alongside an ambulance paramedic or nurse.

NSWA has flown doctors on board its contracted helicopters since the mid-1980s. However, the clinical crew model that has been used around the state has varied, evolved and grown over the years.

“In Sydney for example, sincethe late ’80s it’s always been a paramedic and doctor model for pre-hospital and inter-hospital missions,” said Dr Manning. “Whereas in the regional areas, largely because there have not been enough doctors to crew, it has been a two paramedic model for pre-hospital missions and a doctor paired with a paramedic or flight nurse for inter-hospital transfers. So it’s been a bit variable over the state, but part of the reform plan is to move into a common medical crewing model and have a doctor on every flight across the state. ” Under the contracts, the helicopters will be available when required with no cap on flying hours. “For funding purposes we build on current hours and escalate what we think that is going to be over the contract period,” said Dr Manning. “Our activity is driven by what the rest of Health isdoing and what the community is doing. For the pre-hospital missions, one of the principal drivers is the state of the economy – the more healthy the economy, the more people get out and about and do things. And that’s usually when people will get into trouble and need our help. ”

NETS and CareFlight

For the northern region contract, four AW139s will be acquired with one each based at Lismore, Tamworth and Newcastle, with a fourth available as an operational spare moving between bases as required.

Down south, eight AW139s will be ordered for the southern region contract with six operational and two spare aircraft. Of the six operational helicopters, single examples will be based at the Orange, Wollongong and Canberra bases. “Essentially we’ll have three helicopters based at Bankstown,”said Dr Manning. “Two will service the greater Sydney area and one will be dedicated to the newborn and paediatric emergency transport service (NETS) team. ” A standardised fleet will allow for NETS to be brought into the reformed network with any of the AW139s configured to be able to carry out the specialist missions. Currently under contract to CareFlight (NSW), using a dedicated Bell 412EP and a backup BK117, NSW Health NETS teams are transported around the state to provide care for sick and injured babies and children before flying them to the Westmead Children’s Hospital, near Parramatta.

“The difficulty we have under the current arrangement is the NETS helicopter has a specialised fitout for its important cargo and we don’t have a lot of interoperability,” said Dr Manning. “While we can provide another aircraft to do the job adequately, should the NETS machine be down for maintenance for example, it’s just not the same as having ‘their’ aircraft. The aim of this exercise is to have all of our aircraft with exactly the same fitout and be completely capable of completing all missions to improve the fleet’s flexibility. From the NETS crew perspective, we will now have a suite of aircraft available configured exactly the same, so for them it will be like hopping into exactly the same aircraft. ” With further expansion and development slated for the Westmead Hospital campus over the next decade, Dr Manning concedes having the NETS helicopter based at Bankstown Airport is the safest option.

“Particularly if we want to operate to Performance Class 1 to the maximum extent it will progressively become impossible to do that as the infrastructure changesat Westmead. So when a NETS job is tasked we will relocate across to Westmead, pick up the NETS team from the regular patient delivery helipad, which is future-proofed if you like, and then head off on the job. ” On initial observation, under the new network the helicopter crew will be separated from the NETS team, thereby incurring a possible delay while the helicopter ferries from Bankstown to Westmead. In reality though, a NETS tasking is not a rapid response like pre-hospital missions, given the patient is already in hospital care. Once the aviation crew is notified of a pending NETS mission they will make the short flight across to Westmead and be waiting on the pad for the arrival of the NETS team. Of benefit too, should inclement weather prevent the helicopter from making a safe landing at Westmead, the NETS team could then transfer by road ambulance to Bankstown Airport for an instrument departure, ensuring the mission continues.

When the NETS contract switches in 2017 to Toll, CareFlight will still continue to operate its stand-alone rapid response, pre-hospital retrieval service within the greater Sydney Basin. As an adjunct to the existing network and future retrieval network, CareFlight carry one of its own doctors and a NSWA paramedic on every mission.

“CareFlight is a fine service and it operates to our clinical and aviation standards,” said Dr Manning. “It fulfills a useful role, and while the retrieval system is not dependent on Careflight, it certainly give us a bit more flexibility and capacity for the current and future network. ”

Training centre of excellence

As part of its contract, Toll will also construct an aeromedical training centre on site at Bankstown Airport for its aircrew and NSWA medical teams, using high-fidelity simulators.

The training centre will include a Level D AW139 full-flight mission simulator, wet and dry winching practice towers and a helicopter underwater escape training (HUET) pool and simulator.

“We are very excited about the new training centre because the fidelity of the training that we’ll be able to give will be extraordinary,” said Dr Manning. “We already have an elevated helicopter cabin with a hoist mounted on the side which we practice loading patients and teach clinical procedures in. This will transfer across to the training centre.

With the new facility, we will also have a virtual environment for the air crewmen to fly a whole mission with someone adding in various human factors like a hoist stoppage, a runaway or communications failure. So we are very excited to start using that. ” Slated to be operational towards the end of 2016, the training centre will be within the same compound as the operations base, albeit physically separated to ensure training crews do not interfere with operations. The centre is designed to be an integral part of the transition across contracts, training up staff in time for the commencement of the new contract.

Community sponsorships and awareness

Under current arrangements two major naming rights sponsors, Westpac Banking Corporation and Snowy Hydro, along with a plethora of sub-sponsors, have a financial interest in the operations of the helicopter services in Lismore, Tamworth, Newcastle and Canberra. On top of that there is a decades-long legacy of community fundraising and awareness activities in support of these services.

“The new helicopter will have a hoist camera and cameras onboard and part of promoting the service will be utilising that footage through social media and regular media to show the community the life saving work our helicopters are doing on a daily basis,” said Snowy Hydro SouthCare CEO, Owen Finegan. “We look forward to working closely with the new contractor to raise awareness, promote safety and raise funds for the helicopter, and we’ll do that in association with Toll similarly to how we did it with CHC. ” Despite the government contract to keep the helicopter in the air, Finegan said community fundraising and corporate sponsorship would go towards buying auxiliary equipment for the service. “You’ll always need equipment that can be used to improve your service,” said Finegan. “There are lots of different pieces of equipment on board the helicopter that will need updating and we may not be able to do that if the money from the community and sponsors isn’t there. ” While NSWA’s helicopters in Orange, Bankstown and Wollongong are without sponsors, under the new contracts existing corporate sponsorships and community funding arrangements will remain with the potential for future naming rights sponsors to be found. “In the north, the Northern NSW Helicopter Rescue Service will bring its Westpac sponsorship, its red and yellow-coloured helicopters and community engagement engine room along with them to the new contract, so essentially nothing changes up there,” said Dr Manning. “Down in Canberra with Snowy Hydro SouthCare, the whole infrastructure, the trust, the fundraising and community engagement will remain as is. This was a protective part of the procurement process. While Toll will be providing the helicopter, it will be liveried up to a similar Snowy Hydro SouthCare colour scheme. ” For the other southern region aircraft in Orange, Bankstown and Wollongong, their machines have been wearing NSWA’s red and white colours with no sponsorship or branding since 2007. “A key part of this procurement process was to bring back the community engagement aspects to these helicopters,” said Dr Manning. “As part of its bid Toll had to put in how it envisaged it was going to do that. It has a community engagement and sponsorship plan that it has to bring on board as part of its contract. As Toll gets more into its contract and once its community engagement engine room and sponsorship comes on board then we can expect the livery of those aircraft to change over time. ” Toll will appoint a full-time community engagement manager to develop local interest in the rescue helicopter’s mission, in addition to developing its corporate fundraising activities. And while corporate dollars are not required to make both of the contracts work, the provision for sponsorship will allow the operators to bring back or maintain a community focus on their helicopters within their communities.

“We find in the rural areas, and we find this with SouthCare as well, you can’t underestimate how much these helicopters give a community,” said Dr Manning. “While it might be difficult to quantify, these helicopters give communities a focal point and resilience knowing that they have this highly capable safety platform parked there and you can’t underestimate that. ” Once the northern and southern region contracts are fully implemented, NSWA will operate the largest fleet of aeromedical rescue helicopters the country has ever seen. And so for the growing populations of NSW and the ACT, the new retrieval network promises the best of both worlds – uniformity, consistency and cost-effectiveness – while building on the current strengths of community fundraising and engagement.