The London Air Ambulance Service 1st April 2019

Monday 1^st April 2019

I was privileged to be invited to the headquarters of the London Air Ambulance at the Royal London Hospital as a freeman of the Guild of Nurses.

By the time we arrived at 11am the crew of the air ambulance had already been called out three times – to a cyclist, to a child hit by a car and to an accident on a construction site. It was just a typical day for this hard-working charity.

Most of us have seen the bright red helicopter whizzing overhead to treat and rescue seriously hurt casualties in medical emergencies. It was fascinating to meet the people behind these rescues and learn more about the skills, expertise and logistics involved.

The London Air Ambulance crew are all based at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, east London. The whole service is entirely funded by charitable donations, which enables it to operate independently from the NHS and so not bound by NHS protocol. In this way, the LAA crew are free to push boundaries, operate state of the art interventions, pioneering treatments of casualties and leading the way in trauma healthcare worldwide.

Emma Hammett RGN

Emma’s full report of the visit to London’s Air Ambulance is on the Freemen only section of the website.