Stockholm’s County Council has publicly announced that it has awarded a new contract for airborne emergency medical services in the Stockholm region to Scandinavian MediCopter. The new contract will be valid from 1 December 2017 to 30 November 2022, with an option to extend the period by two additional years. The decision comes after a new remade public tender that followed after last year’s annulled tender.

The contract calls for a larger helicopter in order to give better possibilities to work whilst airborne to the medical crew. The contract also stipulates the possibility to use a second helicopter for daytime operations all year if needed. Adding to this, the customer has also placed clearer demands in terms of pilot qualifications as well as more stringent safety parameters for the helicopter and its equipment.

Scandinavian MediCopter, a subsidiary of Scandinavian Air Ambulance, is currently operating the EMS helicopter in Stockholm, utilizing one EC135 for H24 operations and a second EC135 for daytime summer alerts. The company has been responsible for the helicopter operations in the region since 2001, when its predecessor Lufttransport acquired Osterman Heli’s HEMS division in Stockholm.

The unit, which is stationed at in Gustavsberg east of Stockholm, performed 2470 missions in 2015. Approximately 80% of these were high-priority emergency calls, where the conditions of the patients were considered to be life threatening.

The new contract cannot be formally signed by Stockholm’s County Council until a ten-day appeal period has been passed, starting from today.

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