We go inside Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance HQ

The team at Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance (HIOWAA) are always ready to bring the hospital to patients in need of urgent critical care – whether they’ve had a cardiac arrest or a serious fall. 

We spent the day behind the scenes at the lifesaving charity's operational base in a hangar at Thruxton Airport, five miles west of Andover. 

(Image: Tim Wallace for HIOWAA) READ MORE: Farming projects launched in Malawi - thanks to Woolston crafters

Currently housed on the edge of the motor racing circuit, with supercars racing by, a multi million pound move to a site close to Southampton Airport should soon become a reality. 

As we arrived at Thruxton yesterday morning, the team were back online after an hour in which they couldn't take off due to poor weather conditions and were ready and waiting to be called out on a mission. 

Staff at the dispatch centre at Otterbourne, who deal with around 6,000 calls a day, tend to give the medical team the nod around seven times a day, up from five last year mainly due to the launch of the critical care paramedic car response and an ever-improving relationship with South Central Ambulance Service. 

That's more than 1,800 call-outs so far this year.

(Image: Newsquest / Lorelei Reddin) When we visit, it's specialist paramedic lead Julian Hannah and doctor Tom Geliot ready to leap into action at any given moment.  Once the call is received, they can expect to be airborne within five minutes.

Helicopter flight seems a rather exciting way to travel, but neither medic is an aviation buff, it's just a means to an end. 

"It's all about medicine for me," says Tom, who splits his time between the air ambulance service and the emergency department at University Hospital Southampton.

"I don't care how I get to people, I just want to get there as soon as I can.  You don't know where people are going to have a medical event, so you just need to get to them wherever they are." 

(Image: Tim Wallace for HIOWAA) The charity's biggest ever fundraising campaign is currently underway, the £3.6million Operation Airbase Save Time, Save Lives drive to convert and equip a £9million site at Eastleigh into a purpose-built headquarters.

The move will mean doctors and paramedics can reach almost every patient in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight within 10 minutes of take-off – in contrast to the current time of 20 minutes or more.

Around 70 per cent of the charity’s call-outs are in the south of the region, mainly in the cities of Southampton, Portsmouth and Winchester. It will mean hugely improved air and road access to all three. 

"It will always be better being closer to the action," says Julian, who trained as a paramedic in his native Australia before a stint with London Ambulance Service, then five years with HIOWAA.

"There have been so many occasions when I have thought, 'if we could have just got here a bit sooner, it would have made such a difference'. It could mean the difference between someone living and dying or between having a decent quality of life and not. The move will give us the chance to send more people on the road to recovery."

(Image: Newsquest / Lorelei Reddin) The pair are on a ten hour shift at the base, one of two shifts which currently runs between 7am and 2am daily, providing mutual aid to neighbouring air ambulance services whenever necessary.

They spend non emergency moments carrying out training, research, improvement projects and helping the charity team, currently based at Adanac Park in Nursling. 

Half of call-outs tend to be medical, cardiac arrests for example, while half are traumatic, road traffic collisions and the like.

(Image: Newsquest / Lorelei Reddin) To land, the Airbus Helicopters H135 helicopter requires a site about the size of a tennis court during daylight hours, while a cricket pitch-sized landing patch is required in the dark. 

The team really do bring the hospital to you, sometimes hiking 15 minutes from a landing site to the scene carrying everything you would find in an emergency department - even a ventilator and blood - on their backs. A certain level of fitness is therefore required - think an above-average bleep test. 

They are capable of everything from a tracheotomy to an emergency caesarean section at the roadside. 

Less than ten per cent of patients are actually taken to hospital by helicopter, mainly those on the Isle of Wight, with the compact vehicle's main function being bringing the medics to the scene. 

HIOWAA also provide an aftercare service, providing follow up support to patients, their relatives and on scene bystanders – helping with physical and mental recovery, coping with grief and much more.

To donate to the appeal, visit http://www.hiowaa.org