27 Mar 2026
After 24 years of delivering the ground-breaking Physician Response Unit (PRU), from 1 April 2026 the service will move under the management of the NHS.
This transition marks a huge achievement for both London’s Air Ambulance Charity and the PRU.
The PRU was initially set up by London’s Air Ambulance medics in 2001 as a trial, under the tripartite umbrella of London’s Air Ambulance Charity, London Ambulance Service and Barts Health. Just as our helicopter team takes the emergency department to the patient, the PRU takes the hospital into the community.
Seeing the success of the concept, in 2018 it was expanded and remodelled to be a seven-day-a-week service, a third team was launched in 2022 and now in 2026 the service is being fully integrated into the NHS.
Throughout the years, the PRU has made a transformational impact on community emergency medicine across the UK. Delivering urgent care in patients’ own homes and communities, the PRU has not only holistically treated tens of thousands of patients in North East London but inspired other organisations to develop their community emergency medicine programmes.
The service has previously been nominated for various health awards, received unprecedented levels of patient satisfaction and also forged a fantastic collaboration with the military, enabling the PRU to support military colleagues in delivering the best possible pre-hospital care.
Dr Sophie Mitchinson, PRU’s Clinical Lead, said:
“The PRU has influenced community emergency medicine in this country and beyond, in a huge way. It was the original service of its kind, but it has also gone on to influence – directly and indirectly – the development of other similar services across the country.
"In our local area within North East London, the PRU team have brought together the teams and services working within the community to foster relationships, share learning and ultimately improve the care we deliver to patients.”
Under the NHS, the PRU will continue to put the patient at the heart of the service, promote a shared decision-making model to identify the right care in the right place for the right patient and ultimately reduce the number of people who have to go to hospital.
London’s Air Ambulance Charity is so proud to have delivered the PRU in partnership with the London Ambulance Service and Barts Health NHS Trust for all these years and looks forward to witnessing it develop further under the umbrella of the NHS.
Jonathan Jenkins, our CEO, said: “On behalf of London’s Air Ambulance Charity, I want to personally thank everyone who has served within the PRU, your achievements have been nothing short of spectacular, moving the dial in terms of what is possible in community emergency medicine.”