St David’s Day 2021 marked the 20th anniversary of Wales Air Ambulance. Mark James looks back on the charity’s history and achievements.
The Wales Air Ambulance charity began operating a single helicopter on March 1st 2001, based at Swansea airport in South Wales. The aircraft – a twin engine Bolkow 105 – was bright yellow and sported the AA logos on its fuselage, thanks to a sponsorship deal brokered by the National Association of Air Ambulance Services.
Fast-forward a little over twenty years and the charity is a very different operation in 2021. From those early days, flying five days a week with a single pilot, the Swansea base expanded to a seven-day operation, followed by the establishment of additional bases at Caernarfon in north Wales and Welshpool in mid Wales. A successful application for LIBOR funds from the Westminster government has meant the southern base has moved to a purpose-built site at Dafen on the outskirts of Llanelli, while there have been improvements at both Caernarfon and Welshpool.
The three helicopters, now painted in the Welsh national colours of red and green, were first upgraded to Eurocopter EC135 aircraft and then, in 2017, to larger Airbus Helicopter H145s. Also in 2017, a fourth helicopter began operating as a dedicated Childrens’’ Wales Air Ambulance from Cardiff Heliport, transferring sick and injured youngsters to the most suitable hospital anywhere in the UK.
In December 2020, despite the pandemic, the charity was able to hit another one of its long-held targets when the Cardiff-based helicopter began operating during night-time, which meant Wales Air Ambulance became a 24/7 service.
With the exception of the LIBOR funding, none of these upgrades and improvements would have been possible without the support of the people of Wales, who donate around £9,000,000 each year to keep the helicopters flying.
My involvement with the charity began long before that first mission was flown in 2001. In the early 1990s, I’d been writing a series of articles about the Emergency Services for a motoring magazine and I started researching an article about the UK’s Air Ambulances. It quickly became clear that Wales was in need of an Air Ambulance charity of its own and the article was never written.
Instead, I started writing to MPs, the various ambulance services operating in Wales at the time and anyone else who I thought might be able to help launch a charity. It was, at times, a frustrating period but, thanks to the NAAAS deal with the AA, the money was finally in place to start the operation and I became one of the first Trustees of the charity, a role I still proudly hold today.
Calls to traumatic injuries, particularly resulting from accidents on the fast but narrow Welsh roads, have always proved to be among the most ‘popular’ reasons for requests for an Air Ambulance. Life-threatening medical calls, such as cardiac arrests, also result in the helicopters being dispatched, while the more rural areas of Wales mean that a medical team delivered by air is often the quickest way of getting help to a sick or injured patient.
Over the last five years, the charity has benefitted from a close relationship with an organisation called EMRTS (the Emergency Medical, Retrieval and Transfer Service) that is funded by the Welsh Government. This means consultant-level doctors and Critical Care Practitioners now fly on board the helicopters; the enhanced level of care resulting from this partnership means that the Emergency Department is, in effect, being brought to the patient and advanced treatment can now begin at the roadside.
EMRTS also operates a fleet of Rapid Response Vehicles that enable medical teams to attend incidents when the helicopters are unable to fly (in bad weather, for example) or when an incident is close to one of the bases.
From the very start of the charity’s operations, there have been a series of challenges to overcome and targets to hit. Expanding the fleet from the original one to the current four helicopters, improvements to the bases, extending the flying hours, buying the latest in aeromedical equipment and, most recently, introducing a night-time service have all cost money, yet thanks to the amazing support of the people of Wales, the funding has been in place to enable all of these – and more – to happen.
The first twenty years of the Wales Air Ambulance have – please excuse the awful pun – flown by. Over 38,000 missions have been flown and countless lives have been saved since 2001. It’s thanks to fundraising and donations from individuals and groups such as the Welsh Motoring Writers that the charity can continue to deliver a service that means a helicopter can reach anyone in Wales within twenty minutes.
On behalf of Wales Air Ambulance – thank you. Diolch.
Fast-forward a little over twenty years and the charity is a very different operation in 2021. From those early days, flying five days a week with a single pilot, the Swansea base expanded to a seven-day operation, followed by the establishment of additional bases at Caernarfon in north Wales and Welshpool in mid Wales. A successful application for LIBOR funds from the Westminster government has meant the southern base has moved to a purpose-built site at Dafen on the outskirts of Llanelli, while there have been improvements at both Caernarfon and Welshpool.
The three helicopters, now painted in the Welsh national colours of red and green, were first upgraded to Eurocopter EC135 aircraft and then, in 2017, to larger Airbus Helicopter H145s. Also in 2017, a fourth helicopter began operating as a dedicated Childrens’’ Wales Air Ambulance from Cardiff Heliport, transferring sick and injured youngsters to the most suitable hospital anywhere in the UK.
In December 2020, despite the pandemic, the charity was able to hit another one of its long-held targets when the Cardiff-based helicopter began operating during night-time, which meant Wales Air Ambulance became a 24/7 service.
With the exception of the LIBOR funding, none of these upgrades and improvements would have been possible without the support of the people of Wales, who donate around £9,000,000 each year to keep the helicopters flying.
My involvement with the charity began long before that first mission was flown in 2001. In the early 1990s, I’d been writing a series of articles about the Emergency Services for a motoring magazine and I started researching an article about the UK’s Air Ambulances. It quickly became clear that Wales was in need of an Air Ambulance charity of its own and the article was never written.
Instead, I started writing to MPs, the various ambulance services operating in Wales at the time and anyone else who I thought might be able to help launch a charity. It was, at times, a frustrating period but, thanks to the NAAAS deal with the AA, the money was finally in place to start the operation and I became one of the first Trustees of the charity, a role I still proudly hold today.
Calls to traumatic injuries, particularly resulting from accidents on the fast but narrow Welsh roads, have always proved to be among the most ‘popular’ reasons for requests for an Air Ambulance. Life-threatening medical calls, such as cardiac arrests, also result in the helicopters being dispatched, while the more rural areas of Wales mean that a medical team delivered by air is often the quickest way of getting help to a sick or injured patient.
Over the last five years, the charity has benefitted from a close relationship with an organisation called EMRTS (the Emergency Medical, Retrieval and Transfer Service) that is funded by the Welsh Government. This means consultant-level doctors and Critical Care Practitioners now fly on board the helicopters; the enhanced level of care resulting from this partnership means that the Emergency Department is, in effect, being brought to the patient and advanced treatment can now begin at the roadside.
EMRTS also operates a fleet of Rapid Response Vehicles that enable medical teams to attend incidents when the helicopters are unable to fly (in bad weather, for example) or when an incident is close to one of the bases.
From the very start of the charity’s operations, there have been a series of challenges to overcome and targets to hit. Expanding the fleet from the original one to the current four helicopters, improvements to the bases, extending the flying hours, buying the latest in aeromedical equipment and, most recently, introducing a night-time service have all cost money, yet thanks to the amazing support of the people of Wales, the funding has been in place to enable all of these – and more – to happen.
The first twenty years of the Wales Air Ambulance have – please excuse the awful pun – flown by. Over 38,000 missions have been flown and countless lives have been saved since 2001. It’s thanks to fundraising and donations from individuals and groups such as the Welsh Motoring Writers that the charity can continue to deliver a service that means a helicopter can reach anyone in Wales within twenty minutes.
On behalf of Wales Air Ambulance – thank you. Diolch.
RSS Feed