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BBC Radio Scotland Breakfast transcript

Broadcast 29 July 2026 · Extract duration 4 minutes 34 seconds

Speaker labels, timestamps and punctuation have been added. Minor false starts have been lightly edited for readability. The wording otherwise follows the broadcast extract.

Presenter [00:00]
That last meaningful journey: that is what a team of paramedics in Aberdeen are hoping they’ll be able to offer dying patients — a final trip to a place that has been significant to them in their lifetime. And they are setting up a charity, Wish Ambulance Scotland, to try to make this possible. Well, Kieran Hutcheon is one of the founders of the charity and he joins us now from Aberdeen. Morning, Kieran.

Kieran Hutcheon [00:23]
Hello, good morning. Thanks for having us on.

Presenter [00:24]
Thank you for coming on. Tell us how you came up with this, because you had a very emotional experience with your own mum, which has really motivated this, hasn’t it?

Kieran Hutcheon [00:33]
Yes, that’s right. So, around 2017, my mum sadly died following a metastatic cancer, and she had an eye cancer that had spread to her liver. And a couple of years afterwards, I was doing some research into community-led approaches to end-of-life care, and I came across a charity in the Netherlands called the Ambulance Wish Foundation. It was started in 2007 by a gentleman, Kees Veldboer, in the Netherlands, in Rotterdam. And since its inception, it has provided over 25,000 people with a last wish journey to, as you said, a place of meaning or of significance.

Presenter [01:20]
And it doesn’t have to be something grand, does it, for people? It could be the simple act of going for a cup of tea in your own garden, for example, or just, you know, going somewhere — a beach or somewhere that’s been special to you.

Kieran Hutcheon [01:34]
Yeah, that’s right. So, in the Netherlands, I think their figures show that approximately 30% of their wish journeys are to a place of nature. So that might be, as you said, the beach, to feel the sea air on your skin, maybe going to your favourite park or sitting in your garden. It may be somewhere like attending an event, such as football or going to a graduation. And we really believe that, you know, end-of-life care in Scotland is great. Our hospices, NHS and ambulance service do a great job in supporting people. However, unfortunately, we’re not able to go that extra mile. And this opportunity, well, this really creates an opportunity for clinicians to go that extra mile and provide that extra bit of support.

Presenter [02:17]
And you, as a paramedic, understand how difficult it can be just simply to transport somebody when they are gravely ill?

Kieran Hutcheon [02:26]
Absolutely. So, as paramedics, we have the correct knowledge to be able to transport people. You know, even just moving them from bed to a chair or outside the home, for example, can be really difficult for people who don’t have training. We have the correct equipment and the means to be able to get people out of their house and help them make that wish journey.

Presenter [02:56]
So, you’ve started this journey now. How is this going to work? What is the plan about trying to establish your own foundation and your own system here?

Kieran Hutcheon [03:06]
Yeah. So, at the moment, we’re crowdfunding. We went live on Crowdfunder just a week ago past yesterday. Since then, we’ve raised over three — or just short of three and a half thousand pounds. We’ve still got a good bit to go, but over the coming weeks and months, we expect to run some information sessions, which will be advertised via our website and social media. These will be for volunteers and care services as to how they can get involved. We will need significant equipment and things: an ambulance, moving and handling equipment. But we hope to have this in the next few months.

Presenter [03:50]
Right. So it will be a case of getting the transport in place and finding the people, the volunteers that can make this happen.

Kieran Hutcheon [03:56]
Yeah, that’s right. We’ve had good interest so far via our website and we look forward to welcoming those people over the coming months.

Presenter [04:04]
Kieran, thank you very much for telling us about it this morning, and good luck as well. Kieran Hutcheon there, who is one of the founders of that charity, Wish Ambulance Scotland.

BBC Radio Scotland station ident [04:15]
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