Service Improvement

You may have heard about a recent review of the air ambulance service in Wales.

Here you can find information and resources to keep you up to date with the work we will be doing over the next two years to improve our service and inevitably save more lives.

The review highlighted how we are unable to get to between 2 or 3 patients a day and that our service is not being delivered in the most effective way. It is vital to address the issue of unmet need.

You probably have so many questions about what is going to happen next. We hope this space will provide you with those answers, offer reassurance and give you the opportunity to find out more about the work we do. 

What we do

Our service is consultant-led, which means we take hospital-standard treatments to the patient and, if required, transfer them directly to the most appropriate hospital for their illness or injury. This can be within Wales or to specialist treatment centres in England. For the patient, this can mean hours saved when compared to standard care and is proven to greatly improve survival and recovery.

Our service attends the highest-level

emergency calls that involve life or limb-

threatening incidents. We attend less than 1% of all 999 calls received via the Welsh Ambulance Service Contact Centre.

We are a pan-Wales service. With only with five teams operating over a 24-hour period, covering the whole country, we are a scarce and highly specialised resource. Therefore, regardless of where they are based, our dedicated crews will travel the length and breadth of the country to deliver emergency lifesaving care.

Our service does not replace the Welsh Ambulance Service, we work in partnership with them. In most cases, a road ambulance will be on the scene of an incident before us. In the chain of emergency care, Welsh Ambulance Service medics offer the initial immediate care. Wales Air Ambulance is the next link in the chain, delivering advanced hospital-standard treatments even before patients get to a hospital.

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