26 Apr 2023
In the year of 2022, London’s Air Ambulance treated 1,977 critically injured patients. This is the highest number of patients since our service began.
London’s Air Ambulance medics perform life-saving treatment at the scene, including performing open heart surgery, blood transfusions, putting patients into an induced coma and reinflating collapsed lungs – 24 hours a day, 364 days a year.
The advanced trauma doctors and paramedics treat patients across every part of the capital, with Westminster, Lambeth and Tower Hamlets being the busiest London boroughs in 2022 (attending 113 patients, 111 patients and 103 patients respectively).
Of those patients, 34 per cent needed pre-hospital care at the scene due to penetrating trauma (which includes accidental causes as well as stabbing and gun shot wounds), 25 per cent due to road traffic collisions and 22 per cent due to a fall from height.
Currently, London’s Air Ambulance Charity is in the midst of its largest ever fundraising appeal, Up Against Time. The charity must raise £15 million by autumn 2024 to replace its helicopter fleet as the current helicopters become increasingly difficult to maintain.
The role of our helicopters is to take medics to the patient quickly – providing the complex care patients would get in A&E at the scene – for those that are so critically injured, every second counts.
Captain Neil Jeffers, Chief Pilot at London’s Air Ambulance Charity, said:
“Last year we attended more missions than ever before and when we’re up against time, our helicopter fleet and rapid response cars enable us to get to our patients quickly, wherever they are in London.
“Now we’re up against time in a new way, as we need to replace our helicopter fleet by autumn 2024.
“This mission data shows that our helicopters are here for every single person who lives, visits and works in London. That’s why we’re asking Londoners to help us fund the new fleet – we need their support now more than ever.”