Ensure air ambulances can land on-site at hospitals 24/7 in life-threatening emergencies

1. Mandating safeguarded 24/7 on-site helipad access across all Major Trauma Centres and specialist hospitals.

2. Embedding hospital helipad provision within NHS standards and commissioning.

3. Strengthening national and local planning policy to recognise and safeguard hospital helipads as critical infrastructure.

 

4. Ensuring consistent national application of the UK Civil Aviation Authority safety and operational standards. 

 

5.  Establishing a National Emergency Hospital Helipad Infrastructure Contingency Fund to support helipad builds or upgrades where demand exceeds the HELP Appeal’s capacity, or where urgent intervention is needed. 

6. Undertaking an independent national review of the UK’s hospital helipad infrastructure.

When someone is seriously injured or critically ill, air ambulances provide urgent care at the scene and help transport patients quickly to Major Trauma Centres or specialist hospitals. But what happens when they arrive at hospital is just as important as getting there. Across the UK, many Major Trauma Centres and specialist hospitals do not have safeguarded 24/7 on-site helipads.

This means air ambulances are often required to land at alternative off-site secondary locations, with patients then transferred by road for the final stage of their journey. These additional steps can introduce avoidable delays in accessing specialist treatment and, in some cases, put lives at risk.

Air Ambulances UK’s research shows that over half of Major Trauma Centre and specialist hospital sites are either unable, or not consistently able, to support full operational capability for 24/7 on-site access. In some cases, these critical hospitals do not have an operational helipad at all.

The UK’s air ambulance network is made up of 21 independent charities. They operate separately from the NHS and receive no day-to-day Government funding, relying instead on generous public donations to deliver pre-hospital emergency care. However, they still depend on NHS hospital infrastructure to complete the patient journey into definitive care.

Where 24/7 on-site hospital helipad access is not available, patients not only experience delays in reaching specialist treatment, but this also places additional pressure and cost on ambulance services and hospital teams due to the need for additional transfers.

This campaign is about ensuring that the NHS system is fully prepared to receive air ambulance patients directly on-site, without avoidable delay, at any time of day or night. Major Trauma Centre and specialist hospital helipads should be protected and recognised as essential NHS infrastructure, so that patients can be transferred directly to the care they need in critical situations.