Major Trauma Centres: Helipads
It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Alec, and to be speaking on behalf of the official Opposition in this debate called by everybody’s friend, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—the Member of Parliament above all others for whom the term “indefatigable” could have been coined. It is a very important debate, and I commend him on the clarity of the three asks that he has put to the Government; we look forward to hearing the Minister’s response. On an average day, air ambulances undertake 137 missions. We have heard in the debate about the great work of air ambulances across the country. The hon. Member specifically mentioned their work at Strangford lough at the end of the Ards peninsula. It is a part of the world that he knows I know well and is a very good illustration of the importance of being able to move people quickly when the roads are slow to pass. In my constituency of East Hampshire, we are very lucky to have a fantastic team at the Hampshire and Isle of Wight air ambulance, which can reach almost anyone in Hampshire or on the island within 10 minutes from take-off from its new airbase and headquarters at Southampton airport. They have flown 907 missions so far this year. In the single month of August, their doctors, pilots and paramedics responded to 250 missions. During the August bank holiday weekend, the teams were deployed eight times a day on average, coming to the rescue in the aftermath of car crashes, cardiac arrests and accidental injuries. I know all Members join me in commending the work and generosity of air ambulance charities and their supporters. The supporters are very important. As a number of colleagues have mentioned, air ambulances are not part of the national health service; they are charities. Yet, as the hon. Member for Strangford highlighted, most people do not know that they are independent from the NHS. I hope that this debate plays a part in addressing that lack of awareness. Fundraising is a vital activity for air ambulances. It costs the Hampshire and Isle of Wight service £17,750 a day to keep their vital service operational. They are particularly creative fundraisers—from the clothes recycling points and the charity lottery to “brew for the crew” coffee mornings and the “dash in the dark” and many corporate and commemorative fundraising initiatives. I commend everyone involved with the Hampshire service and with air ambulance charities right across the country for their amazing—indeed, in many cases, lifesaving—efforts. In code red cases, where there is a medical emergency such as cardiac arrest or internal haemorrhaging, the minutes saved by air ambulances can really make the difference between life and death. When a patient has suffered skeletal head, chest or abdominal injuries and local hospital facilities are not sufficient, air ambulances can fly the injured to major trauma centres that would take a long time to reach by road. Of course, for this to work, hospitals need suitable helipads for crews to take off and land, and here lies the issue that we are discussing today. Research from the all-party parliamentary group for air ambulances—I thank those who support that group, some of whom are with us today—highlights that access to safeguarded on-site hospital helipads is inconsistent <span id="234WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="234WH"></span>across the country. More than a third lack either 24/7 access or an operational helipad. When helicopter transfers are not possible, it then costs hundreds of pounds in secondary ambulance transfers, with delays to care leading to longer hospital stays and more intensive treatment. In 2019, Health Ministers allocated £10 million to nine ambulance charities supporting air ambulance services to move towards 24/7 operations and improve seven airbase facilities. During the pandemic, we provided £6 million of emergency funding to air ambulance charities to help them with the pressures they were then facing. Members often speak about postcode lotteries and it is a phrase that has come up again today. Given the nature of the incidents that air ambulances respond to, patchwork coverage really can make the difference between life and death. It is one of the most sharply important postcode lotteries to address. Since taking office, what have the Government done to reduce unwarranted variation in emergency care by place? Specifically, what are they doing to provide the reliable infrastructure that air ambulances need? A written question was posed to the Minister in the other place asking whether the Government had considered a contingency fund to secure future helipad provision. The response was that a fund was not under consideration and NHS organisations must consider competing priorities within available resources. Can the Minister confirm that the Department of Health and Social Care underspent its capital departmental expenditure limit by some hundreds of millions of pounds in the last financial year? Was any of the underspend considered for helipad projects? We talk about prioritising within available resources, but overall, people working in the health service note that available resources are reducing. Integrated care boards are pencilling in cuts to services and NHS trusts are planning to axe many jobs. Yesterday’s Budget deepened the cuts to the NHS to around £1 billion of capital cuts over the next four years. Can the Minister tell us what the impact of that will be? Which programmes will be cut and, specifically on the subject of this debate, what are the implications for helipad capital? To ensure that no good deed goes unpunished, this Government decided to reward air ambulance charities with a new jobs tax. For every employee on average earnings, air ambulance charities, alongside others of course, must pay an extra £900 to HMRC. Is the Minister willing to raise the plight of air ambulances with Treasury Ministers? Does she think it is wrong that money that has effectively come from charitable donations should have to be diverted to help pay for the cost of the previous Chancellor’s mismanagement of the public finances? As colleagues have noted, air ambulances are also suffering the consequences of soaring energy prices. The cost of aviation fuel surged more than 80% this spring, adding tens of thousands of pounds to air ambulance charities’ annual fuel bills. Earlier this summer, my right hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) wrote to the Government asking Ministers to ensure that air ambulances are included in fuel resilience planning and recognised in NHS emergency services fuel access arrangements. Can the Minister update Members on actions taken by her Department since receiving that correspondence?<span id="235WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="235WH"></span> The Government rightly have high ambitions for the health service: reduced ambulance times, shorter hospital waits, faster discharges. We of course share those ambitions, but there is a huge gulf between where the NHS is now on some of those key performance indicators and where we all want it to be. The National Audit Office estimates that 1.2 million patients waited between 12 and 24 hours in A&E last year. NHS waiting lists have been climbing, with the number of trauma and orthopaedic cases with a decision to admit higher than at the time of the change of Government. Charities providing critical medical transport are having to cope with the weight of the extra taxes from the Government on top of those pressures from high energy prices. In this debate, Members from across the House have called on the Government to act by putting forward a clear framework and road map for hospital helipads, establishing clear standards for NHS estates and exploring options for financial support so air ambulances can afford to stay in the air and keep saving lives. Again, I commend the hon. Member for Strangford for the clarity with which he set out his three asks. I urge the Minister to listen to air ambulance charities, their supporters and all those who are delivering high-quality emergency care. We look forward to her response.