AROUND A dozen people a year would die were it not for the Tayside Trauma Team, which yesterday received a new vehicle, writes Marjory Inglis, health reporter.

It shows the real value of having such a team ready to rush to major road traffic accidents and other incidents where patients might die without immediate specialist intervention, according to team leader Mike Donald.

Dr Donald was speaking as the team showed off their new Land Rover at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee.

The vehicle is the first to be provided by core NHS budgets.

In the past the vehicle has been provided by public donations, but has proved its worth and is now seen as a vital part of the team’s life-saving work and management have decided to fund the vehicle from mainstream budgets.

Asked if there were occasions when patients would have died were it not for the trauma team, Dr Donald said, “There are numerous occasions where the intervention of a doctor with the necessary training can reverse patients who have got unsurvivable traumatic injuries.”

He said the intervention meant these young people could recover to live meaningful lives where they were not dependent on the state for their ongoing support.

“What we do has a huge impact on their lives—a massive impact,” he said.

The team took delivery of the vehicle last Thursday and has already attended one major road accident and a serious assault since it was commissioned and the team underwent training in its use.

Ninewells, which serves a wide-spread population across a varied area with swathes of relatively inaccessible places, is the only hospital in Scotland to provide such a consultant lead service for injured patients 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

The service has been operating since 1994.

Accident and emergency consultant Barry Klaassen, who has been a member of the team since it started, said the trauma team was taken to incidents in police cars until they got their own rapid response vehicle, provided by a local garage at the time.

“Then we fund-raised for our second vehicle at the department, but because of its use and the way it fits in with our service, management have decided it is part of our core service and should be funded by the NHS.”