Summary
The Yorkshire Air Ambulance is an independent charity providing a life saving rapid response emergency service to 5 million people across the whole of Yorkshire. The service is operational seven days a week, 365 days a year. The Charity currently attends over 1,000 missions a year, an average of 4 incidents every single day. Last year they treated 1067 patients at scene and carried 599 of those to hospital for emergency treatment.
The YAA currently operates two helicopters – one based at Nostell Air Support Unit, near Wakefield and the other at RAF Topcliffe, near Thirsk.
To keep both of Yorkshire's Air Ambulances maintained and in the air, the YAA needs to raise £12,000 every single day, which is the equivalent of £4.4m a year. The generosity that they receive really is the life blood of the Charity.
The charity was set up in 2000 and with the addition of the second air ambulance in October 2007, the YAA now operate our own Dedicated Air Desk for rapid dispatch of their helicopters to an incident. The swift medical interventions provided by their air ambulance crews have a major impact on a patient's chance of survival and subsequent quality of life.
In September 2016, the Charity took delivery of a new state-of-the-art Airbus H145 helicopter. This was shortly followed by a second H145 in December 2016. The latest generation aircraft has a larger cabin and will give paramedics a much more modern medical fit-out to treat and transport often critically injured patients. Replacing the current fleet will ensure the continuation of a state-of-the-art air ambulance service for the people of Yorkshire for the next 25 years.
To find out how you can donate to the Yorkshire Air Ambulance, please visit www.yaa.org.uk.