Busiest year in four years for MAGPAS air ambulance charity
Photo captions (from left to right) and attached:
Photo 1 – Magpas Air Ambulance Dr Anne Booth and CCP Dan Read
Photo 2 – The Magpas Air Ambulance in flight
Magpas Air Ambulance experienced its busiest year in four years as the charity responded to 1,335 emergencies, across 11 counties in and around the East of England, in 2022.
Following the same patterns as recent years, life-threatening medical emergencies such as cardiac arrests remained the number one reason for activation, followed by patients injured in road traffic collisions—accounting for 65% of the service’s emergency call outs combined. Magpas Air Ambulance also continued to see more men than women, with 73% of patients treated being male, and 10% of patients were children.
As every one of the charity’s clinicians is trained in Pre-Hospital Emergency Medicine (PHEM), they can provide advanced medical care (above that of a standard land ambulance) at the scene of a patient’s incident. This means they’re only called to the most critically ill or injured patients in the area. By providing patients with hospital-level care early on, Magpas Air Ambulance not only saves lives and reduces recovery times, but also assists the ambulance service and hospital staff in a number of ways too.
The charity, based in Cambridgeshire, provides its lifesaving service 24/7, 365 days a year. In 2022, Magpas Air Ambulance received more emergency calls between 3 pm-4 pm than any other time of day, and throughout the year, more than 460 activations occurred during the night shift (7 pm–7 am). This is only possible thanks to Magpas Air Ambulance’s advanced doctors and critical care paramedics working around the clock to keep communities in the region safe.
The festive period is usually a busy time and between 24th December 2022–2nd January 2023 alone, the Magpas Air Ambulance medical team responded to 46 life-threatening emergencies across six counties; most frequently attending patients in cardiac or respiratory arrest (including on Christmas Day), and treating patients aged between 6 months–80 years old. The highest number of calls were received on New Year’s Eve.
Natalie Church, Magpas Air Ambulance Director of Operations, explains “Our doctors and paramedics have had an extremely busy year. With activations increasing by 6%, they have done everything possible to continue delivering lifesaving pre-hospital care to patients, wherever they are. It’s important to remember that behind the data, every statistic and figure is a person whose life is on the line, and it’s the incredible Magpas Air Ambulance medical team who make crucial differences for those patients every day.”
Magpas Air Ambulance Director of Fundraising and Marketing Lucy Chapman adds, “As a charity, Magpas Air Ambulance can only continue to save lives and keep families together 24/7 thanks to donations from the people and communities we serve.
“There are so many ways you can help keep Magpas Air Ambulance continue flying this year—from taking on one of our exciting challenges such as our Mission: Obstacle Dash or skydiving; to volunteering with us in the office or out and about at events; or playing our winter Superdraw, which is a great way to help our team save lives while being in with a chance of winning £5,000. Just visit magpas.org.uk to find out more.”
