Service Improvement

No.

We will continue to deliver our service with four aircraft and a fleet of rapid response vehicles.

No.

Nobody is losing a service. Northern parts of Mid Wales and North-West Wales will see an improvement – particularly overnight.

Comprehensive evidence shows that more lives could be saved in these regions because of the service improvement.

We will work with our NHS partners and representatives from your communities to monitor and evaluate this service improvement over the coming years.

Wales Air Ambulance is not designed to meet ambulance response times. When it comes to our specialist service, it is important to remember the following points:

• We are a pan-Wales service    

Any comment about increased response times because of a base move assumes that we are coming from one particular base. In reality, an incident could be attended by any one of our Wales Air Ambulance crews, regardless of where they are in Wales.

Our service is not about where we come from, it is about where we go, the vital treatments that we deliver at the scene, and taking patients directly to the healthcare facility that caters for their specialist needs.

• We are not designed to be the first on scene  

Our Welsh Ambulance Service colleagues are usually on scene before us and will offer the initial emergency treatments. Our involvement is secondary when we arrive and deliver the advanced hospital standard treatments.

So, while the speed of response is important when considering life and limb-threatening illness or injury, Wales Air Ambulance is not there to provide a primary response to these incidents, that role remains with the Welsh Ambulance Service.

• We already save a significant amount of time for a patient to receive specialist care  

It is also important to remember that by delivering hospital-standard treatments at the scene and taking the patient directly to specialist care, we already save a significant amount of time – hours in some cases – for the patient to receive the right treatment.

Of course, our service needs to be timely but shaving minutes and seconds off response times is not clinically necessary. We have proved that our attendance significantly improves a patient’s chances of survival and long-term recovery – and it is important to recognise that this improvement is in comparison with standard ambulance/hospital admission cases. This is why it is important to ensure that rural and urban parts of Wales alike can benefit from our skills and expertise.

No.

Wales Air Ambulance is a pan-Wales service. We are a scarce, highly specialist service. Regardless of where they are based, our crews will travel to any part of Wales to deliver their lifesaving treatments.

For example, in 2024, 71% of incidents attended by the Welshpool crew were outside of the county of Powys. Conversely, during the same period, 56% of missions within the county of Powys were attended by a crew based in Welshpool.

51% of incidents attended by the Caernarfon crew were outside the areas of Gwynedd, Ceredigion and Anglesey. Conversely, during the same period, 61% of missions within the Gwynedd, Ceredigion and Anglesey were attended by the crew based in Caernarfon.

The EMRTS Service Review, and subsequent decision, were independent of the Charity. Therefore, it would be inappropriate for us to comment on any legal challenge that is being made.

Needless to say, the heart of this conversation should always be patient-focused. We are deeply saddened that a genuine wish to improve our service and save more lives has come to this.

The Charity respected the processes of the independently led EMRTS Service Review and the subsequent Judicial Review, which were both focused on our NHS Partners. We did this by avoiding public commentary and that was difficult for us.

Some communities in northern parts of Mid Wales and North West Wales shared their anxieties about a potential change during the Service Review’s three periods of public engagement.

We strongly empathise with the genuine concerns and anxieties expressed about wider healthcare provision in these regions. As a very small and very specialist service, we are a small cog in the wider machinery of pre-hospital emergency care. There is very little we can do to address many of those concerns and nor should we be responsible for covering gaps in NHS provision. We have raised this with our partners, who have reassured us that these issues have been passed on to the appropriate bodies for their information and action.

Since late 2022, we have recognised some misunderstandings about how our service is delivered and what would happen under the new service improvement. We will work hard to address these misunderstandings and reassure you of our intentions and priorities.

We will be open and transparent as we move forward and will include you in our journey every step of the way as we work towards improving our lifesaving service.

The Wales Air Ambulance Charity believes that it is in the best interests of Wales to have an air ambulance operation that works in medical partnership with the NHS but is independent in its income generation and decision-making. This independence, outside of the pressures and constraints of public sector funding, allows the Charity to focus on its core services, continually monitor and effectively adapt to the critical care needs of Wales in a timely manner, while maintaining a consistently high standard of care.

The third sector and public sector partnership adopted in Wales is a model that has proven benefits for patients and their families, as well as for the NHS.

This rationale for remaining independent is shared by all air ambulance charities across the UK.

With a significant opportunity to save more lives across Wales, Wales Air Ambulance and EMRTS are working together to plan and implement these recommendations. A new base facility should be achievable within the next few years.

The Charity will pay for the new base facility using a variety of income sources.

Work is ongoing to identify an appropriate base location.

A timeline will be set once an appropriate site has been identified.