Longer hours for Air Ambulance will save lives

 
Mark Blunden @_MarkBlunden13 February 2013

London's Air Ambulance is to extend its flying hours — saving more lives as it maximises its daylight operating time.

The charity running the service said today it also hoped to buy a second aircraft and hire more crew if it can raise the money.

The single helicopter currently flies from about 8am until 7pm during the longest days in summer.

Outside those times a crew in a fast-response car attends the worst road traffic accidents, shootings, stabbings and other “serious trauma” incidents in London.

Chief executive Graham Hodgkin revealed plans for extended hours from dawn until dusk in summer along with a makeover for its current aircraft.

The crew performs critical procedures on scene including open-chest surgery and anaesthesia. Last month the air ambulance began carrying blood.

Mr Hodgkin said: “It’s one thing to be able to sew up a stab hole at the roadside but without being able to carry blood and undertake transfusions there is a limit to what you can do in terms of saving someone’s life.” Last year, 2,059 people were treated. The charity must raise about £4 million to remain operational and needs to find at least £2.5 million to buy a new MD902 Explorer.

The helicopter covers 600 square miles of London and gets to the furthest reaches of the M25 in about 12 minutes, flying at 150mph, from its daytime base at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel. Although part-funded

by the NHS, it is not part of the London Ambulance Service and must source its funding separately. Londoners are encouraged to support it through a £1-a-go lottery.

Mr Hodgkin said: “We deliver a service that we believe is an important part of London’s emergency response. We want to extend the scope of that and ultimately save more lives.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in