Brits face postcode lottery of access to air ambulances, new study finds

Experts concluded that given the majority of emergency helicopters in Britain rely on charitable donations for funding, it is "reasonable to expect some ongoing variation between services."

The new audit also found differences across services in the offer of life-saving care, such as blood transfusions and a minimally invasive procedure to stabilise blood pressure.

Helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS), also known as air ambulances, are dispatched via NHS ambulance services to the most unwell medical and trauma patients.

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Services providing "consistent 24/7 physician-based pre-hospital teams" increased from one in 2009, to 11 in 2024, the study conducted by the Emergency Medical Journal found.

The East of England has the highest 24/7 availability, while Northern Ireland, South West England and northern England the least.

The study also found that variation persists between which procedures and interventions the services can offer.Nine in ten (90 per cent) of services offered blood transfusions.

Just one offered resuscitative balloon occlusion of the aorta – a procedure which reduces severe bleeding and stabilises blood pressure.

Services in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are completely or partially given government funding. In England, six out of 19 services received partial government funding and none were fully funded.

Experts from Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Barts Health NHS Trust and Imperial College London set out to audit all services across the UK, after the last review took place in 2009.

All 21 services responded to a survey about the care they provide.

The authors wrote: "There has been an improvement since 2009 with 11 physician-based teams available 24/7 compared with only one in 2009.

"However, even within this provision, variation exists in terms of interventions provided such as the provision of blood products or regional anaesthesia."

Meanwhile, separate research published in the same journal found that air ambulance support means patients are more likely to survive serious injury.

Researchers examined the records of 3,225 trauma patients given air ambulance support in the South East of England, including Kent, Surrey and Sussex, between 2013 and 2022.

They found that air ambulance care is linked with saving five more lives than would be expected in every 100 major trauma cases.

This equates to 115 additional lives saved each year, based on the numbers who are cared for by the service, the authors said.

The research team said the greatest effect on survival was among severely injured patients with "moderate survival probability."

They added: "Our findings provide supportive evidence for advanced pre-hospital trauma interventions."