“I don’t know about you. But I’m feeling 22.”
Today we celebrate our 22nd birthday as a registered charity and we could not be prouder of what we’ve achieved during this time.
A massive thank you to everyone who has donated or fundraised for GNAAS over the last 22 years – you are all lifesavers.
Here are just some of the milestones we’ve reached thanks to your support:
Doctors on board
In 2003 we introduced doctors to our team, which transformed the level of care offered to patients. By having a doctor as well as a highly skilled paramedic on board our aircraft and rapid response vehicles, this means our team can perform anaesthetic procedures, roadside surgery and blood transfusions.
Pioneering training courses
Since the introduction of doctor and paramedic critical care teams, our charity has recognised the importance of rigorous training and governance, which led to designing bespoke training courses emphasising the importance of multidisciplinary team working, proper decision making and robust governance procedures.
In 2007 the Pre-Hospital Emergency Anaesthesia course was launched which provides doctors and paramedics with the knowledge and skills required to deliver pre-hospital anaesthesia.
GNAAS also initially worked with London’s Air Ambulance to develop a course which taught the clinical and non-clinical skills that are required from helicopter emergency medicine clinicians.
By 2014 two of our doctors took over the development and delivery of the course, leading to the formation of partnerships with County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service and Northumbria University, and was rebranded the Pre-Hospital Emergency Medicine Crew Course in 2015 which attracts clinicians from around the world.
Blood on board
In 2015 blood was first carried on board our helicopters and rapid response vehicles, followed by the introduction of plasma the following year. Pre-hospital transfusions had not previously been possible in the North of England, and now we’ve provided blood to more than 500 patients.
The project was instigated by our doctor Rachel Hawes who received an OBE for her work.
Open chest surgery
In 2017 our team performed a successful thoracotomy when a man was stabbed and left for dead in Horden, County Durham. The surgery involves gaining access to the heart and lungs through a major incision in the chest. The man was literally brought back from the dead and the footage of it was the first time a successful pre-hospital thoracotomy had been recorded in the world. It has become a vital training aid for our teams as well as other pre-hospital teams.
GoodSAM app
In 2018 we became one of the first emergency services in the UK to utilise the GoodSAM app. The app allows our team to see the scene through a bystander’s camera phone simply by sending them a text message and helps them make more informed decisions before deploying to an incident.
Care Quality Commission
In 2022 we were given the highest possible rating of ‘Outstanding’ by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) following a recent inspection.
We received very positive feedback from the CQC’s head of hospital inspection who said they were extremely impressed by the level of care and support received when using our service and there was a genuine culture of wanting to provide the best care for patients and a desire to improve services.
Night-time service
During the day our team operate on an aircraft, however on the night-time they transfer to a rapid response vehicle. The car carries the same equipment as our aircraft, so our team can still deliver advanced treatments, they just can’t airlift patients to hospital.
We began having a doctor and paramedic team operating on a car in 2015, working on Friday and Saturday nights, and after seeing a high demand, we began working hard to fund the additional nights.
We were very proud to announce in January 2023 that we began operating 24/7 in the North East.
We’re hoping to offer the same level of service in Cumbria in the near future and have been slowly expanding the number of nights that our team cover in the county, with the aim to become fully 24/7 this year.
Isle of Man
Outside of the UK, we have been working alongside Manx Care based in the Isle of Man to trial a service to transfer seriously injured or unwell patients by helicopter from the Isle of Man directly to the UK for emergency medical treatment.
Since the launch of the trial in March 2022, our critical care teams, based in Penrith, Cumbria and Teesside, North East, have responded to more than 40 incidents and carried out multiple interventions on the Island.
Charity Ambassadors
We also welcomed two new charity ambassadors in 2023 who are jockey Emma Smith-Chaston and Kerry Irving.
Emma is helping to spread awareness of GNAAS by wearing the charity’s logo on her jockey silks and has also rallied the support of her agency, Integral Sports Management, who kindly donated an auction prize for one of our charity balls which raised over £2,000.
Kerry, who runs the social media for Max Out in the Lake District, which has 243k followers on Facebook, has raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for our charity by hosting several community events and dog walks. His springer spaniel Max gained worldwide fame when videos of his walks in the Lake District were posted on Facebook. He sadly passed away in 2021 but his legacy lives on through our life-saving work, and you will find his pawprint on our rapid response vehicles and ‘Pride of Cumbria II’ helicopter.
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