To further strengthen emergency care for communities across Nottinghamshire, Lincs & Notts Air Ambulance (LNAA) has expanded its Critical Care Car to a 24/7 service, enabling its specialist clinicians to reach more patients with life-saving treatment around the clock.
A generous donation from the HELP Appeal has enabled LNAA to purchase two new Volvo XC90s, supporting the delivery of a round-the-clock service in Nottinghamshire. Crewed by the charity’s HEMS doctors and paramedics, the cars carry the same life-saving equipment found on board the helicopter, including ventilators and advanced medicines, effectively taking the equivalent of a hospital emergency department directly to the scene.
The Critical Care Car team will respond across Nottinghamshire and surrounding areas, delivering life-saving interventions at serious incidents, including road traffic collisions, cardiac arrests, falls, industrial accidents and assaults.
The introduction of the Critical Care Car in 2020 followed a successful trial, which showed that around 400 additional missions in Nottinghamshire each year could benefit from the service. Working collaboratively with East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust, LNAA has reviewed emergency call data and identified a clear need to increase provision to meet rising demand.
This expansion also forms a key part of LNAA’s wider operational development, including upscaling for the second helicopter, ensuring it can meet the needs of its communities both now and in the future.
CEO Karen Jobling said: “Generous and heartfelt thanks must go to all our supporters, who enable us to provide this life-saving service without any Government funding. To all of you, we are eternally grateful and proud to have your support.”
Operating from Tollerton, LNAA’s Critical Care Car will roam across Nottinghamshire, ensuring specialist teams are available whenever they are needed. In the first 21 days of July, the Nottinghamshire car was dispatched to 81 incidents. Of these, 36 took place during the additional shifts, representing around 1.7 extra missions each day.
This means the additional shift provision accounted for 44% of all Nottinghamshire car missions during this period. In practical terms, it has increased the asset’s mission activity by almost half, enabling LNAA to attend significantly more incidents than under the previous operating model.
Head of Operations Laura Evans, who helped lead the expansion project, said: “Our air ambulance crew are called to patients suffering from the very worst injuries and illnesses, and we are proud and privileged to be there for them in their time of need. Our clinicians can provide the highest level of specialist critical care, including blood transfusions, surgical procedures, advanced pain relief and pre-hospital emergency anaesthesia, at the roadside or in homes when needed to stabilise the most critically ill patients.”
