There is no air ambulance trial!

The Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) never said the new helicopter air ambulance would be on trial this year, according to spokesman John Morton, this week.

"What we said originally was that we would start introducing the helicopter this year, so people could see it working alongside the Islander," Mr Morton told The Orcadian.

"That is what we are doing. While we are 100 per cent confident the helicopter is the right solution, we recognise that there is concern in the islands.

"We can keep telling people that it will work, but the best thing to do is to show them.

"We always said we would introduce the helicopter this year and task it to jobs in Orkney from Inverness, to let people see it working.

"I don't know at what point that became 'a trial'."

He said the performance of the air ambulance services would be monitored, but this was routine and did not constitute a formal trial.

The misunderstanding seems to have arisen, possibly because Orkney Islands Council had asked for a trial, and possibly because information provided by the health minister, Andy Kerr, was misinterpreted.

Mr Kerr said in January that the SAS was happy to demonstrate the helicopter's capabilities and responsiveness over a period of months.

He said the ambulance service had pledged to share monitoring information with the Orkney Islands Council, the health board and the Executive's health department, covering the local performance of the helicopter against the quality standards set out in the specification.

"This information will be shared on a quarterly basis for the foreseeable future, although in the longer-term, and by mutual agreement, the frequency may be relaxed," Mr Kerr said at the time in a letter to Orkney's MSP, Jim Wallace.

"We agree that in the event of the monitoring information pointing to service failure, or to significant and enduring reduction in service performance, then the Scottish Ambulance Service would be required to explain what remedial measures were being put in place to address these."

Mr Wallace said he had sought reassurances that "these trials" would have some purpose.

Orkney Islands Council, in its submission on the contract changes last December, asked for a six-month trial period.

Gama Aviation will operate the air ambulance service from April, 2006, taking over the contract from Loganair.

Gama won the contract with its bid to run the service with two Eurocopter helicopters from Glasgow and Inverness and two purpose-built King Air planes from Aberdeen and Glasgow - with no Orkney-based aircraft.

Loganair has an Orkney-based Islander aircraft operating as the air ambulance.

Mr Morton said the current use of the helicopter had nothing to do with staff concerns over the safety of the Islander aircraft.

"The staff are naturally concerned by the loss of the aircraft which crashed," he said.

"The difficulty is that nobody has the answer - we don't know yet what caused the crash."

He said some staff had concerns about flying in Islander planes.

"Given the circumstances, we understand that and are doing our best to address their concerns," he added.