New vehicle to help Hampshire Air Ambulance reach more patients in need of specialist care
The charity has a new set of wheels
Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance has got a new car to help the charity reach more patients in need of specialist emergency care.
The additional vehicle carries at least one specialist paramedic in critical care and operates in addition to the helicopter based doctor and paramedic Critical Care Team.
The CCP car has responded to over 54 emergencies since it’s launch on the 1st September and is initially operating seven days a week between 8am and 6pm, covering the whole of the Hampshire region.
Each Specialist Paramedic is highly trained and able to provide enhanced treatment like administering stronger pain relief, sedation and other medicines and providing specialist assessment and interventions to give patients the very best chance of survival and recovery.
Additional resource
The CCP car is used as an additional resource sent to those patients who may need extra care including some of the higher priority 999 calls for potentially-life threatening conditions such as severe asthma, anaphylaxis, seizures or birth-related emergencies, as well as those who may be unconscious or are experiencing difficulty breathing.
The CCP car can also provide additional support to the doctor-paramedic team at complex or multi-casualty incidents and act as a first responder when closest to time-critical patients such as cardiac arrest or major trauma.
The helicopter-based Critical Care Team will continue to respond by air and road to the most serious incidents requiring the most advanced care, from 7am to 2am, seven days a week.
Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance Paramedic Clinical Lead, Michael Bradfield, said:
“This is an important step in the development of our service as we seek to reach a broader range of patients for whom additional treatment may be beneficial. Thanks to the development in our team over a number of years, we now have a cohort of highly-experienced and qualified Specialist Paramedics who are able to utilise their skills not only as part of the doctor-paramedic team, but also to use them independently in support of other types of patients in need of specialist care.
It brings the total number of emergency response vehicles in the charity's fleet to three which are used in parallel to the helicopter or when it cannot fly due to adverse weather conditions.
The CCP car will carry slightly different equipment based on the requirements of the calls it will attend.
Sine the start of the year Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance have responded to more than 1,278 call-outs.
Each mission costs on average £3,320.