Those numbers made me blanch somewhat! Having been in a helicopter (aka Air Ambulance) in the UK, all of which operate as charities iirc, I was curious about their costs.
> The average cost of a helicopter mission is £4,748* and the average cost of a critical care car or rapid response vehicle mission is £2,054*[1].
https://www.airambulancesuk.org/about-us/facts/
eesh
FWIW I think that HEMS cost is significantly under costed, as the London HEMS H135s run about £2,500 per flight hour on direct flight costs alone, so I suspect the £4,748 figure is referring to that alone.
I think a closer estimate is probably total annual operational costs divided by total shouts, (£18 MM / 2,000) or about £9,000 per shout.
Even that's an under costing, as the clinical personnel, equipment, and liability is shouldered by the NHS. A pure costing is probably closer to 2-3X that per clinical flight.
Still an order of magnitude less than the commercial US operators.
That's a more useful estimate than merely the flight costs, agree - though the fixed operation costs don't change much in an 1800 vs a 2100 callout scenario.
> Still an order of magnitude less than the commercial US operators.
It's wild!
Also found this intriguing in your source:
> London’s Air Ambulance crew made history in 1993 by performing the world’s first successful pre-hospital open-heart surgery at the roadside.