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Thames Valley Air Ambulance has reached a major milestone, completing its 20,000th mission since becoming an independent healthcare provider in 2018. The figure is the equivalent of two emergency call-outs for every resident in Wallingford, or one for every person living in Sandhurst.
The charity, which provides pre-hospital critical care across Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, is dispatched an average of nine times a day. Crews respond to the region’s most severe medical emergencies by helicopter or critical care response vehicle, bringing hospital-level treatment directly to patients at the scene.
With schools preparing to break up for summer, the service is raising awareness of the risks the holiday season can bring. One in every eight patients treated and airlifted by the charity is a child, with nearly 1,500 children receiving care from its critical care paramedics and doctors since independence.
Adam Panter, Chief Operating Officer at Thames Valley Air Ambulance, reflected on the scale of the achievement: “Having seen Wallingford from the sky while on shift in our helicopter, it’s quite powerful to know our total number of call outs now matches the population of that town,” he said.
“We receive no government or NHS funding. So, every single mission we attend is powered by you, the community. It’s thanks to you we’ve been able to load our kit bags and start our engines an amazing 20,000 times since 2018.”
The charity is encouraging continued public support to ensure it can keep responding to emergencies across the region—whenever and wherever it is needed.
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