The Wales Air Ambulance Charity has a unique partnership with NHS Wales, which enables NHS doctors and practitioners to fly on board its aircraft.

This means patients can receive advanced treatments and care before reaching hospital.

Through the scheme, consultants and critical care practitioners (CCPs) fly with Wales Air Ambulance on a fully rostered programme from the NHS’ Emergency Medical Retrieval and Transfer Service (EMRTS Cymru). 

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The consultants are the same as you would see in an A&E hospital, flying to you. The CCPs are highly skilled in critical care, from nursing and paramedic backgrounds. The teams use some of the most advanced treatments and equipment in the world, from techniques developed in the armed forces.

Through the introduction of EMRTS, we became the first dedicated, consultant-led air ambulance operation in the UK. The scheme is committed not only to providing the most advanced pre-hospital care in Wales but also in upskilling and attracting doctors and CCPs to live and work in Wales. 

Some of the services provided include:

• Pre-hospital critical care for all age groups (i.e. any intervention/decision that is carried outside standard paramedic practice). 
• Undertaking time-critical, life or limb-threatening adult and paediatric transfers from peripheral centres (inc. Emergency Departments, Medical Assessment Units, Minor Injury Units) for patients requiring specialist intervention at the receiving hospital. 

In addition, the 'Welsh flying medics' provide an enhancement of neonatal and maternal pre-hospital critical care (both for home deliveries and deliveries in free-standing midwifery-led units, MLUs). This includes:

• Transferring neonatal teams to distant time-critical cases by air. 
• Supporting midwife units and home deliveries by stabilising neonates and women with life-threatening problems and transferring them to a consultant-led delivery unit.