Our impact | June 2024

This equates to an average of four missions every single day, a rise from three missions a day we usually attend.

Of the missions attended across Wiltshire, Bath and surrounding areas, 87 were in our helicopter and 33 in our critical care cars.

A total of 10 missions took place at night, when our pilots need to use specialised night vision goggles. 

Swindon was the most frequently visited area, with 22 missions taking place in June. Our critical care team also attended 11 missions in the city of Bath, 10 in Trowbridge and nine in Chippenham. 

We performed 36 patient transfers to various hospitals, with 11 transfers to Royal United Hospital in Bath, eight to Great Western Hospital in Swindon and seven to Southmead Hospital in Bristol. We transferred patients to eight different hospitals across the region.

In terms of mission types, our crew were called to 31 cardiac emergencies, 23 falls, 19 were medical conditions and 16 road traffic collisions. We also attended 15 incidents involving children.

The crew are often called upon to perform surgical procedures, deliver blood transfusions and administer pre-hospital emergency anaesthesia at the scene of an incident.

During June, our aircrew carried out three procedural sedations, six patients needed pre-hospital emergency anaesthesia, which is a vital yet high-risk intervention. It is used to gain rapid control of a patient’s physiology following serious traumatic or medical incidents.  

There were four patients who required blood transfusions on scene before being transferred to hospital. We carry two units of O Negative red blood cells, two units of O Positive red blood cells and four units of plasma on board our helicopter and critical care cars. 

Our aircrew supported 11 patients with advanced airway management, and on 16 occasions the team used the LUCAS machine to deliver CPR.