The Children's Air Ambulance

The Children's Air Ambulance is one of a kind. It's the first and only dedicated helicopter emergency transfer service for seriously ill children and babies, flying them from one hospital to a more specialist unit, alongside their team of clinicians; a journey usually made by land.

Our helicopter transferred its first clinical team in December 2012, and performed its first patient transfer on 11th May 2013.

Unbelievably, it's estimated that approximately 5,800 children need transferring between hospitals every single year. Currently the majority of these transfers are performed by land, meaning sometimes long and arduous journeys for seriously ill youngsters.

The Children's Air Ambulance is able to drastically cut the time it takes to carry out these types of transfers, which means sick children and babies can get lifesaving care as soon as possible - giving them the very best chances of survival and recovery.

Receiving no Government or National Lottery funding, we rely entirely on public donations and support in the local community to raise the £134,000 we need to run our vital service.

Since the launch of the helicopter in 2012, we have been extremely busy adapting our helicopter with pioneering facilities - this unique helicopter is like no other in the country. Its customisation has to be exactly right to transfer such vulnerable patients and their care teams.

We have been working closely with retrieval teams across the country, to ensure that the specialised equipment is suitable to transfer the seriously ill patients safely between hospitals, and that the service meets their requirements, as well as the Civil Aviation Authority. This equipment includes a stretcher that has been specifically adapted to carry a baby pod (similar to a baby incubator) in both the helicopter and a land ambulance, as well as medical gases and monitoring equipment.

Unlike other Air Ambulance services, The Children's Air Ambulance will only perform paediatric transfers from hospital to hospital, across the whole of the country. It differs to other Air Ambulances who treat children that are the victims of accidents such as road traffic collisions, sporting injuries or other emergency situations, they do not carry the equipment needed to perform a specialist hospital to hospital transfer. Having a dedicated nationwide transfer service also ensures that all the fantastic lifesaving Air Ambulances across the country, including our own (Warwickshire & Northamptonshire Air Ambulance and Derbyshire, Leicestershire & Rutland Air Ambulance) can continue to serve and protect their own regions.