Air ambulance services in the United Kingdom provide emergency medical functions, patient transport between specialist centres, or medical repatriation. Services are provided by a mixture of organisations, operating either

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attribu ...

s or fixed-wing aircraft. All emergency air ambulance helicopters in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland are operated by charities, while Scotland has one charity service in addition to its two NHS-funded helicopters. Fixed-wing air ambulances, used for patient transport, may be government or privately operated.

History

The first air ambulance services in the UK commenced in Scotland in November 1933, with a flight from Wideford Airport, Kirkwall Orkney. The first night time ambulance flight was undertaken in February 1939, from Wideford to the island of Sanday, using car headlights to help take off and landing. The aircraft used was a General Aircraft Monospar, registration G-ACEW, operated by

Highland Airways Highland Airways was an airline based in Inverness, Scotland. It ceased trading on 24 March 2010 after failing to secure new investment. The airline operated passenger and freight charters as well as scheduled services from its main base at Inv ...

. The first air ambulance charity to operate a helicopter was Cornwall Air Ambulance in 1987.

Emergency air ambulances

Emergency air ambulances are generally helicopter based, and used to respond to medical emergencies in support of local ambulance services. In England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, all of these services are charitably funded, and either directly owned by the charity, or operated under contract with a private provider. The ambulance staff and doctors crewing these flights are generally seconded from the local NHS ambulance service and NHS hospitals. In Scotland, there is the only publicly-funded air ambulance service, with the

Scottish Ambulance Service The Scottish Ambulance Service ( gd, Seirbheis Ambaileans na h-Alba) is part of NHS Scotland, which serves all of Scotland's population. The Scottish Ambulance Service is governed by a special health board and is funded directly by the Healt ...

operating two Airbus Helicopters H145 helicopters and two fixed wing aircraft in this role, alongside two charity-funded Eurocopter EC135 helicopters, operated by Scotland's Charity Air Ambulance.

Patient transport operations

There are also a number of public and private patient transport operations in the UK, generally using fixed wing aircraft, and which are part of a system of moving patients between points of care, or as part of a repatriation to the UK. There is a

based patient transfer service, focused on paediatric cases, called the

Children's Air Ambulance The Children's Air Ambulance (TCAA) is a charity-funded air ambulance service that transfers critically ill children from local hospitals to specialist paediatric centres throughout Great Britain. It also moves specialist teams and equipment to ...

, which first flew in 2012. The

operates two fixed wing aircraft in this role, with patients flown to the mainland UK for treatment. In 2015, the neonatal, paediatric and adult emergency care and retrieval operations were brought together with the Scottish Ambulance Service and utilise the aircraft and road ambulances for this purpose. They are co-located at the Scottish Ambulance Air Base at Glasgow International Airport. The Isle of Man Department of Health and Social Care operates a fixed-wing air ambulance for patient transport between the island and mainland hospitals. The

Channel Islands The Channel Islands ( nrf, Îles d'la Manche; french: îles Anglo-Normandes or ''îles de la Manche'') are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two Crown Dependencies: the Bailiwick of Jersey, ...

of Guernsey and

Jersey Jersey ( , ; nrf, Jèrri, label= Jèrriais ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey (french: Bailliage de Jersey, links=no; Jèrriais: ), is an island country and self-governing Crown Dependency near the coast of north-west France. It is the ...

have a Beechcraft King Air B200 air ambulance, operated by Gama Aviation since July 2020, that transports patients to England for treatment that they cannot receive on the islands. In addition,

Aurigny Aurigny Air Services Limited (pronounced ), commonly known as Aurigny, is the flag carrier airline of the Bailiwick of Guernsey with its head office next to Guernsey Airport in the Channel Islands, and wholly owned by the States of Guernsey ...

operate a medical evacuation service from Alderney to Guernsey.

Notable accidents involving air ambulances

*On 19 May 1996, a Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander aircraft operated by Loganair for the

crashed short of the runway at Lerwick/Tingwall Airport in Shetland while turning to final approach at night during strong and gusting winds. The pilot was killed, and the physician and flight nurse were injured. There was no patient on board at the time. *On 26 July 1998, the three man crew of the

Kent Air Ambulance The Kent Air Ambulance was an organisation providing emergency medical services through the provision of a helicopter air ambulance covering the county of Kent in South East England. The helicopter was funded by the Kent Air Ambulance Trust (under ...

died when the aircraft collided with power lines and crashed in a field in Burham, near Rochester Airport. Initial investigation established no definitive cause for the crash, due to the fireball produced on impact. Controversy ensued when the pilot's employers, Police Aviation Services, denied liability. On 19 February 2004, following a civil case brought by the pilot's widow to the High Court in Manchester, it ruled that the crash was caused by mechanical failure, not as suggested flying low for fun, and ordered compensation to be paid. *On 14 June 2000, four passengers and one pilot were killed when a Piper PA-31-350 Navajo Chieftain, chartered for a medical transfer from the

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, crashed on approach to Liverpool Airport. * On 15 March 2005, a Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander aircraft operated by Loganair crashed into the sea while descending toward

Campbeltown Airport Campbeltown Airport ( gd, Port-adhair Cheann Loch Chille Chiarain) is located at Machrihanish, west of Campbeltown, near the tip of the Kintyre peninsula in Argyll and Bute on the west coast of Scotland. The airport was formerly known as R ...

in western Scotland. The aircraft was operating an air ambulance flight on behalf of the Scottish Ambulance Service. The pilot and

paramedic A paramedic is a registered healthcare professional who works autonomously across a range of health and care settings and may specialise in clinical practice, as well as in education, leadership, and research. Not all ambulance personnel are p ...

both died in the crash.

References

External links