Sarah supporting Air Ambulance in 2010

Sarah is pleased to announce that during her 2010 season, she will be supporting and promoting the Warwickshire and Northamptonshire Air Ambulance (WNAA).

The WNAA was established in 2003 to provide a Helicopter Emergency Medical Service for Warwickshire, Northamptonshire and the Milton Keynes area. Their service carries senior doctors and consultants to the scene of incidents quickly, providing life saving treatment and medication at the scene and en route to the hospital.

WNAA is one of very few services outside London to routinely carry a Doctor on board. Their primary response area is the 2000 square miles of Coventry, Warwickshire, Northamptonshire, Milton Keynes and some of the key border areas like Market Harborough, Banbury and Solihull. They also help out their neighbours under a mutual aid agreement in Birmingham, the West Midlands, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Leicestershire, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire.

The service has 15 Doctors, 15 Paramedics & 6 Pilots who service a population of around 1.2 million people. Based at Coventry Airport, in the five years it has been operating, it has flown over 7000 missions. With an ever-increasing callout rate of between 120 and 150 per month, WNAA is the busiest air ambulance in the UK.

WNAA is a registered charity and relies totally on public donations, fundraising activities and sponsorship. The average cost per mission is around £1000 and the annual basic running cost of the service is over £1.5 million. Currently only able to operate in daylight hours due to the restrictive leasing costs of flying at night, WNAA aims to become the first service in the UK to operate 24 hours per day.

Speed is vital when it comes to emergency situations. Receiving rapid and appropriate medical attention is paramount, and there is an increased chance of survival if the patient receives specialist trauma treatment within the first 60 minutes after an accident - the ‘golden hour’. WNAA’s state-of-the-art Agusta helicopter can be in the air in just 45 seconds from the time of an emergency call. With a top speed of 200mph it is the fastest civilian helicopter available, and can be anywhere in Warwickshire in 9 minutes and anywhere in Northamptonshire in 15 minutes. Their average response time is just 6 minutes.

Sarah went along and met the team today at their base at Coventry Airport.  She commented, “I have been a supporter of the Air Ambulance for some time. The job they do is so essential and I can’t believe that they receive no government funding whatsoever. If I can raise their profile and, as a result, raise some more funds for them, I’ll be extremely happy.”

Full details about the Warwickshire and Northamptonshire Air Ambulance can be found at www.wnaa.co.uk