Wales Air Ambulance

Wales Air Ambulance

At a glance

Causes

  • Emergency Services / Armed Forces

Other details

Organisation type: 
Charity
Geographical remit: 
National - Wales

Objectives

Wales Air Ambulance is the largest air ambulance charity in the UK, serving a population of just over three million people and providing lifesaving critical care interventions to our citizens whenever and wherever they need it. With a motto of “Serving Wales, Saving Lives” and a Royal Patron, His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales, who has himself been an active HEMS (Helicopter Emergency Medical Services) pilot, we are absolutely committed to delivering the very best service we can for the people of Wales.

We have successfully grown our service over the last twenty-three years from a single aircraft operating five days a week from a single base in South Wales to the four-aircraft, 24/7 service model that we have today. Our medical crews are some of the most advanced in the world, with Critical Care Consultants and Practitioners performing Emergency Department-standard interventions at the roadside, in patients’ homes or among the fields, hillsides and coastline that make up the challenging geography of Wales.

We are a pan-Wales service. Regardless of where our dedicated crews are based, they travel the length and breadth of the country to deliver advanced lifesaving care.

Our ambition knows no bounds and we strive to continually innovate – from leading the field with our clinical R&D, to using robotics to automate our Lottery administration.

Activities

As a service, we are the envy of many in the UK and further afield. World-leading studies have shown the difference we make – an evaluation of the first five years (2015 – 2020) of our partnership with the Emergency Medical Retrieval and Transfer Service (EMRTS) showed that in 66% of the cases we attend, we supplied a level of service that is normally only delivered in hospital-based Emergency Departments. For victims of major blunt trauma (mostly road traffic accidents), we showed a nearly 40% increase in survival rate when compared with a standard ambulance/hospital response. These are not merely statistics, they are patients and they are families.

Shortly we will hit our milestone of achieving 50,000 missions in our 24th year. That is a massively impressive figure – but it is not just about patients. It is also about the families, friends, neighbours, work colleagues and bystanders whose lives we touch. As Trustee you will experience the incredible reaction of encountering past patients, but also people whose lives have been touched by our service. And trust me, it is an incredibly humbling experience when people just want to come up and say “thank you”.

We don’t just administer world-class pre-hospital critical care either – we also support patients and their families long after their initial encounter with us. Through our Aftercare Service, we ensure that not only are we one of the first on scene, but we are also the last to say goodbye. Our Patient Liaison Nurses work with our past patients and their families to ensure that complex treatment pathways are smoothed and, where outcomes are sadly negative, that bereaved loved ones are supported compassionately and helped to process their grief.  Our patients and their families are wonderful ambassadors and their stories are truly inspirational. 

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