3 Nov 2025
After six incredible years of service as London’s Air Ambulance Charity’s Medical Director, we pay thanks to Dr Tom Hurst.
Tom has officially stepped down from his role, with Dr Anne Weaver revealed as London’s Air Ambulance’s new Medical Director. However we’re pleased to announce he’ll continue working for the service as a key member of our consultant team.
Tom has been actively involved in pre-hospital care since first working for London’s Air Ambulance in 2008 and served as Medical Director from 2019 to 2025. He also remains a consultant in intensive care medicine at King’s College Hospital.
During his tenure as our Medical Director he worked tirelessly to develop various pre-hospital medical innovations that have taken the service to new heights and provide Anne with a platform for the direction she will lead the service in. Under his management, our expert team of doctors and paramedics thrived in many projects, including:
Launching Medic 3
In December 2021, an additional medical team was launched, meaning that for the first time, we would operate with two duty teams on call. The additional team, known as “Medic 3”, operates in a rapid response car, Monday to Saturday from 14:00 to 24:00. This has significantly helped our expert teams be more resilient, reach more critically injured patients and respond faster when we’re needed most.
Bringing ECMO to the streets of London for the first time ever
Under Tom’s leadership, for the first time ever in the UK, we brought ECMO to the streets of London, offering hope to patients in cardiac arrest. This intervention – called extracorporeal membrane oxygenation – temporarily takes over heart function in patients who aren’t responding to resuscitation, securing them enough time to be transferred to a specialist cardiac centre for further treatment. At present, no other air ambulance service in the UK has this capability.
Achieving our Up Against Time appeal
In 2024, we successfully raised £16 million to replace our two helicopters. This would not have been achieved if it weren’t for the level of engagement the clinical team – led by Tom – dedicated to the campaign. Operational staff embraced the fundraising needs, from bucket collecting to video requirements to media interviews, resulting in achieving the charity’s biggest fundraising campaign of its history and securing the future of the service.
Launching our new strategy
In 2025 we launched our new strategy, Hope Across London. Tom played a pivotal role in not only shaping the clinical side of the strategy; identifying the medical elements which could be further developed and innovations that should be targeted, but he ensured the clinical side of the organisation was engaged and behind the strategy, working efficiently as one team with one goal.
Among these achievements, and many more, Tom was influential in helping the service navigate the COVID-19 pandemic, has initiated new mental health best practices for the crew and helped enable approximately 11,000 patient missions during his tenure.
We’d like to officially thank Tom for everything he has done for our charity and our service. Thanks to him, many lives have been saved in our capital, and we continue to be here for London, today, tomorrow and always.