Proposals for future of Welsh air ambulance to be submitted next month

The timetable was confirmed by the Welsh First Minister in a letter to the Montgomeryshire Member of the Senedd, Russell George. Mr George had written to the First Minister asking him to clarify confusion over data that supported the proposals to move the Wales Air Ambulance base, closing its site at Welshpool airport.

The potential move, to join the North Wales air ambulance possibly at a new base alongside the A55, is strongly opposed by Mr George and communities across Powys.

Mr George's letter to the First Minister came after he asked Mark Drakeford if he would release the data that supported the proposal to which the First Minister had claimed that the data behind the decision did not belong to the Welsh Government.

He has replied to Mr George setting out the current situation over the proposals, writing: "No decisions have been made about any change to where the service is based and a formal proposal has not yet been submitted.

"The All-Wales Board of Community Health Councils is currently discussing the arrangements for the engagement around the service development proposal and it is expected the proposal will be formally submitted at the start of next month. A decision will be made in early 2023."

Mr George said: "Whilst the First Minister has provided various information about the current position, frustratingly he has not addressed all of my questions or offered to correct the inaccurate statement he made to me last month. The data in question belongs to the Welsh NHS, not the the Air Ambulance Charity.

"The Wales Air Ambulance Service is a much-loved charity and one that receives great support from my constituents and people across Mid Wales, this is why communities across Powys and beyond feel so strongly that the base should remain in Welshpool."

In his original question to Mr Drakeford, Mr George stressed that Powys had no district general hospital, and large parts of Powys were extremely difficult to get to by road.

"The people of mid Wales were left surprised and disappointed over the summer with the proposal from the Wales Air Ambulance Charity and the Welsh NHS’s emergency medical retrieval and transfer service," Mr George said.

He urged the Welsh government to offer funding so that there was an adequate air ambulance service in mid Wales with a base kept in mid Wales.

Mr Drakeford replied that it had long been the position of the Wales Air Ambulance Charity that it did not wish to receive direct funding from the Welsh Government and that the look at restructuring was not about cost cutting but optimising the provision. He said it could not release data as it belonged to the Air Ambulance.