19 May 2023
In March 2023, London’s Air Ambulance’s advanced trauma team attended to 167 critically injured patients in London.
Our crew brings the emergency department to the roadside when there isn’t enough time to get the patient to hospital. This month, providing life-saving pre-hospital care included administering 23 rapid sequence intubations, 11 blood transfusions and one thoracotomy at the scene. Our doctor/paramedic team also performed an innovative procedure, REBOA, once during March.
REBOA can be deployed in the pre-hospital phase to stop patients from bleeding to death. It involves passing a catheter through to the main artery in the body and inflating a balloon at the tip of the catheter to prevent internal bleeding. A previous patient of ours, Steve, received REBOA when he was hit by a car at speed. You can read his full story here.
This month, 58 of our patients were because of assault (35 per cent). Falls from height resulted in 26 patients (16 per cent), medical injuries 25 patients (15 per cent), transport related accidents 22 (13 per cent), other accidents 19 (11 per cent) and other mechanisms of injury 17 (10 per cent).
We cover all boroughs of London and are there every day for the 10 million people who visit, live and work in the capital. In March, Croydon and Westminster were our most visited boroughs – Westminster was also the most visited borough during the whole of 2022 – you can read the annual mission report here.
After our crew have stabilised a patient, they are transported to hospital – usually major trauma centres. This month 51 patients were transported to The Royal London Hospital (39 per cent), 35 to St Mary’s Hospital (27 per cent), 23 to St George’s Hospital (17 per cent) and 16 to King’s College Hospital (12 per cent).
We also completed two fly backs – transporting patients back to hospital by air – which is an unusual occurrence for our team.
Our helicopters get us to the scene in under 11 minutes, when every second counts for an individual who doesn’t have time to get to hospital. But our current helicopters are becoming harder to maintain – as a charity, we need to raise £15 million by 2024 to replace them. Can you support us and help fund your new fleet?