Air ambulance’s expansion of base is finally taking off
The plans have been years in the making – and now one of the region’s most important lifesaving charities has got the final go-ahead for a new dedicated £12m base.
Midlands Air Ambulance’s board has given final approval for the project, which will see a new purpose-built base created off Neachley Lane in Cosford.
The proposals were given planning permission by Shropshire Council last month, and the board’s decision means work will start this month, with the base expected to be ready for autumn 2022.
It is a huge step for the charity, with its current Cosford operation based out of portable buildings, with no dedicated training space for staff who are carrying out incredibly high-level medical procedures under extreme pressure, in the most challenging of circumstances.
The new base, which will provide a home for the charity, will provide a host of benefits for medics, staff, fundraisers, schools, and families of patients who have been treated by the service.
The project has been in the works since 2017, with 92 per cent of the £12m cost coming from grants.
The charity’s chief executive, Hanna Sebright, said: “This is not a rushed decision. We have been been aware for the last five or six years that we have outgrown the premises we are in – particularly in regards to clinical service development – so we have been going through a very prescriptive, granular, process to get to this point.
“We have looked at 500 sites and picked the one that provides the optimum response time across the patch we cover. This is the best location. We have done a lot of research to back that up.”
Mrs Sebright said the new facility would provide medics with the best facilities to train and learn their skills, in turn providing better help for the people of the Midlands.
The service’s critical care paramedics deliver some of the most skilled treatment outside of an operating theatre, performing amputations at the roadside, tracheotomies for seriously sick patients, and administering powerful drugs to the seriously injured and sick.
But currently they train and debrief in little more than a portable building.
Mrs Sebright said: “We will have a simulation suite that will allow clinicians to practice their skills in real time, in a temperature controlled environment.
"It will be able to mirror what it is like to be in a nightclub where someone may have taken an overdose, or an RTC by the side of the road in the snow, so it will really test their abilities, and we have never been able to do that.”
The new facility will also include more dedicated space to debrief, and Mrs Sebright added: “You have to remember, the things they go out to and see every day and the impact they have on their mental health.
"The crews will go out to a fatality, possibly a child – the most distressing situation you can imagine. They come back and there is no space to reflect or consider, they come in and sit in a cabin and wait for the bell to go again, and again, and that is a major consideration for us.”
The new facility will also include a memorial garden, something Mrs Sebright said would allow past patients and families to visit.
She said: “There will be an outside space where past patients and families will be welcome with open arms to attend, maybe plant a tree. It is a quiet space for solace.
"It is something we have wanted to do for so long but something we have not been able to consider until now.
"We have so many past patients that get in touch, or bereaved families, who want to meet the crews. This will be for them.”
Pioneering service has been saving lives for 30 years
As it prepares for a new home that will last for decades, the Midlands Air Ambulance has come a long way since 1991.
The lifesaving service started with one helicopter flying out of a temporary airbase, and now has three helicopters and two critical care cars serving a population of more than six million people.
Since it was set up the charity’s dedicated flight paramedics and doctors have responded to more than 63,000 incidents, making it one of the busiest air ambulance operators in the UK.
It all started when on May 21, 1991, when a handful of people formally launched a new air ambulance service called ‘Air 5’ at Hagley Hall in Worcestershire, operating a Bolkow aircraft. The air ambulance service was one of the first of its kind in the UK and would be operational five days a week.
In October 1991, ‘Air 5’ moved to RAF Cosford in Shropshire, where the charity’s air operations hub remains today.
Eventually ‘Air 5’ was renamed ‘County Air Ambulance’ and in 1997 it launched its second operational helicopter and opened a new airbase at Strensham Services on the M5 in Worcestershire.
In April 2014, the organisation, now Midlands Air Ambulance, unveiled its first wholly charity owned EC135 helicopter, which was purchased thanks only to the generosity of the general public, and a £1.4 million legacy from Derek Bullivant.
In February 2018, the service launched its second wholly charity-owned helicopter, a H145 air ambulance, funded thanks to generous donations from supporters. The aircraft is based from RAF Cosford.
In June 2018, the organisation launched a new critical care car service in Birmingham and the Black Country to specifically tend to those suffering from either a heart attack, cardiac arrest, sepsis, stroke or serious respiratory issues.
The Critical care car is operated between 7am and 7pm by a critical care paramedic. In May 2019, equipped with the same advanced medical equipment as its helicopters, the charity launched its second critical care car in Worcester.
