Thanks to a £270,000 donation from the HELP Appeal, the helipad charity – which has this year already funded new funded emergency helipads on the Isle of Gigha and Mull – the construction of the Campbeltown Hospital helipad on the Kintyre peninsula in the west of Scotland, became complete and operational in April 2021.
Since then it has seen over 330 landings including from patients who have required a variety of treatments such as emergency scans, maternity interventions, orthopaedic surgical interventions and respiratory specialist treatment.
Previously air ambulances had to land on waterlogged, muddy conditions in a nearby field, which made patient transfers to the Emergency Department extremely difficult.
Campbeltown Hospital also often had to send patients to other hospitals across Scotland to receive specialist treatment. But when there were adverse weather conditions, air ambulances had to use Campbeltown Airport – the closest landing site – which made patient transfer times even longer.
Robert Bertram,chief executive of the County Air Ambulance HELP Appeal added:
“This helipad had enabled the swift transferral of patients in critical condition either to Campbeltown Hospital or to another hospital for specialized treatment. This rapid transportation can be crucial in cases where time is of the essence, such as trauma incidents or medical emergencies. The fact that over 110 landings on average have taken place every year on this helipad since it opened, confirms now vital this facility has been to the region.”
The HELP Appeal campaign aims to significantly increase the number of onsite hospital helipads at major trauma centres and A&E hospitals through its grant scheme which offers non-repayable grants to hospitals to help fund new helipads or upgrade existing helipads.
The HELP Appeal has funded or is funding 15 helipads in Scotland, including at Raigmore Hospital, Inverness; Edinburgh Royal Infirmary; University Hospital Crosshouse, Kilmarnock and in remote communities on the Isles of Barra, Arran and Mull.
It has funded over 45 helipads across the U.K., which have seen over 27,000 landings, with 50 more in the pipeline.
The charity has also donated £200,000 towards portable landing lights for Scotland’s Air Ambulance Service for 20 island locations across Scotland from Achiltibuie to Ullapool.
