Services that Manage the Care Needs of Drunk - Scottish Government

4.40 The service works by parking the bus in a busy, prominent, city-centre location
at night. A support vehicle (a van or mini-bus) is used to transport people to
the bus from around the city, or from the bus to a hospital emergency
department, if necessary. In some cases, the support vehicle may also take
people home. In addition, clients may present themselves or be brought along
by friends. In Norwich, the bus works together with a first-aid centre (located
separately in a porta-cabin some distance away).
4.41 The buses generally operate at the weekends, although the Belfast SOS bus is
also deployed at other times during the week for educational and community
project work.
4.42 In general, the clients are young people on a night out. In Weston-Super-
Mare, steps have been taken to prevent the service being used by homeless
people, by providing alternative services and shelters when the bus is on the
street. There is an average 30-minute turnaround time for all clients, and the
different bus projects have reported assisting between 8-9 clients (Norwich) to
400 clients (Belfast) per night.
4.43 Several of the bus projects are run as charitable endeavours and have
received substantial donations (including donations of the bus and / or support
vehicles) from the local community. Some have also been supported
financially and in-kind by local businesses, nightclubs and the licensed trade.
4.44 Costs of the projects have varied. The Belfast bus is significantly more
expensive than the others partly because the Belfast bus is larger (it is a 60foot
‘bendy bus’ purchased from The Netherlands), and partly because the
Belfast Bus is deployed for other activities during the day.
• Norwich: annual running costs, £43,000
• Belfast: initial fitting-out costs, £350,000; annual running costs, £200,000.
• Southend-on-Sea: £150,000 initial costs; annual running costs, £50,000
• Weston-Super-Mare: £20,000 initial costs; running costs, £378/night +
annual costs of £1,000 for MOT, repairs and fuel.
4.45 Although the primary purpose of the SOS buses has been to provide a place of
safety to vulnerable people, evaluation of some of them has shown they have
also been successful in diverting people who are intoxicated (and those with
minor injuries) from emergency departments, ambulances and police cells.
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