It has always been the vision of the Wales Air Ambulance to offer a 24/7 service. The new service will ensure that pre-hospital care is available Wales-wide, 24 hours a day. Over the past few years, we have analysed the ‘unmet need’ for our service – the incidents that we were unable to attend because they were outside daytime operational hours.

This analysis found that:

• There is a need for an extended air ambulance service overnight. There were approximately 990 cases of ‘unmet need’ between the hours of 8pm and 8am over a 12-month period.
  
  
• There is a particular increase in demand between 3pm and midnight. This is most prevalent in the South East Wales area.
  
  
• Life and limb-threatening incidents between 8pm and 8am were managed by the Welsh Ambulance Service. In these cases, Wales Air Ambulance was not available to support with its ED-standard treatments.