Major Trauma Centres: Helipads

Ben Maguire Excerpts

Thursday 29th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on securing this vital debate.

The Cornwall Air Ambulance is a vital service for many of my North Cornwall constituents, many of whom live over 50 miles from their closest major hospital, and I am extremely proud that it is headquartered in my constituency—it was great to see its second helicopter recently. The air ambulance is critical to accessing uneven terrain that ambulances simply cannot drive over or reaching the most remote areas, ensuring that nobody is locked out of lifesaving care because of where they live. That is particularly vital in my North Cornwall constituency, with our vast moorland, rocky cliff lines and many remote villages. It is essential that we ensure that our emergency services are equipped to manage the rurality of our region, ensuring that urgent lifesaving care is not based on a lottery postcode.

The Cornwall Air Ambulance is on the frontline of getting people who may otherwise be stranded for hours to hospital for lifesaving treatment. It is also equipped with medical equipment and personnel who can save lives at the scene of an emergency. Cornwall’s Air Ambulance chairman David Richards has described the air ambulances as “flying doctor services”, offering far more than just transportation. I want to briefly highlight two cases that demonstrate the invaluable service that Cornwall’s Air Ambulance provides.

In my North Cornwall constituency, 15-year-old Lewie received lifesaving care from the Cornwall Air Ambulance after falling from a cliff in Bude and becoming trapped in an inaccessible cove in the cold water. Lewie was hypothermic and drifting in and out of consciousness. He had suffered severe injuries, tearing two ligaments in his wrist, breaking his hand in three places, his thumb, right elbow and right ankle, shattering the left side of his pelvis, breaking two of the seven plates in his neck, five of the 12 plates in his back and several ribs, suffered a punctured lung and lost half a kidney. Lewie credits the Cornwall Air Ambulance with saving his life that day, stating:

“I wouldn’t be here without them”.

After Lewie was winched to the clifftop by the coastguard, critical care paramedics onboard the air ambulance helicopter were able to administer pain relief, apply a pelvic binder and transfer him safely into the helicopter. While flying to the hospital they gave him high-flow oxygen and intravenous fluids because he had low blood pressure, reduced oxygen saturation and a weak pulse. Lewie’s story demonstrates just how effective the Cornwall Air Ambulance is at not only transporting critical patients to the hospital but ensuring that they make it to the hospital in a stable condition.

Three-year-old Mia became unresponsive amid a sudden seizure while on a family holiday in Cornwall. A helicopter with two critical care paramedics and a doctor was able to land in a nearby field. Mia received lifesaving treatment on the roadside because her condition had worsened and she had suffered a second prolonged seizure while her family tried to rush her to the hospital. Mia’s mother Carissa later said:

“I believe that Cornwall Air Ambulance saved Mia’s life that day and I don’t know what we would have done without them…You really don’t know how much Cornwall Air Ambulance do and how much they are needed until it is you that needs them.”

Representatives of Cornwall Air Ambulance have told us that they are deeply concerned about the delays to the works to aid access to the rear helipad at Royal Cornwall hospital, Treliske, in Truro. The delay has severely affected the service that Cornwall Air Ambulance can provide to people across Cornwall who rely on its lifesaving work. With the Treliske A&E helipad closed, landings now take place at the rear helipad and require a transfer by road of around 400 metres to the emergency department. That obviously introduces delays and safety risks in what are often life-critical situations for patients being flown in from across the region. It entirely undermines the strength and efficiency of our brilliant air ambulance service.

Additionally, increasing traffic and footfall around the site, including from nearby housing developments and additional car parking, will continue to place more and more pressure on the already constrained route. I and my Cornish MP colleagues, including the two in the Chamber for this debate—the hon. Members for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) and for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon)—have argued that there is a strong case for targeted transport interventions to ensure that patient transfers are as swift and as safe as possible. We have called for measures to be implemented that could provide secure, reliable access for ambulance transfers, including a safe road crossing from the helipad to the hospital.

Cornwall Air Ambulance has stated that the prolonged delays and more complex routes for transporting patients have imposed operational challenges on clinical teams, creating an additional burden that teams delivering critical urgent care should not have to face. It has said that improved collaboration between the NHS and regional air ambulance charities could help to create a more seamless process, increasing resilience to challenges through shared resourcing and more cohesive long-term planning.

Will the Minister please commit to call for more systematic and formalised collaboration between NHS teams and air ambulances, to ensure more cohesive and seamless care for patients arriving at hospital via air ambulance? Will she commission a report into the collaborative frameworks of the nation’s air ambulance charities and their work with the NHS? Such a report should engage with regional charities and air ambulances across the UK to explore potential partnership structures. Finally, will the Minister please work with Cornwall Air Ambulance, Cornwall council and others to ensure that a safe crossing can be installed between the helipad and Treliske hospital?

On behalf of my constituents, I place on record my thanks and admiration for the whole team at Cornwall Air Ambulance, including the tireless clinical staff and the incredible volunteers and fundraisers. It is an incredible service that, quite unbelievably, does not receive any Government funding.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I will set out the position on planning. The Government share the concerns about the potential impact of new developments on the operation of hospital helipads. That is why our new national planning policy framework, published in August, makes it clear that existing public services should not face unreasonable restrictions on their operation because of development that takes place around them.

The framework is clear that where a new development could be affected by an existing activity nearby, the impacts should be identified and suitable steps taken to address them. It also gives substantial weight to the benefits of new or improved public service infrastructure, including healthcare facilities. Work is happening on that now, and I am sure that if the hon. Gentleman wants to discuss it further, we will be able to facilitate that.

Work is happening on aviation standards, too. The CAA’s civil aviation publication 1264 provides guidance on the design and operation of hospital helicopter landing sites. This matters, because safe access depends not just on having a landing site but on whether an aircraft can use it safely. The guidance is not currently mandatory, but the DFT and the Civil Aviation Authority are working towards the formal regulation of hospital landing sites, which is currently expected around 2028.

NHS England and the DFT are also working to build a clearer picture of which hospital landing sites comply with the existing guidance. Currently, helicopter operators make their own decisions about where they can safely land. That can depend on things such as the aircraft being used, the weather and the obstacles around a landing site. The DFT is working with NHS England, the CAA, the air ambulance sector and His Majesty’s Coastguard on those issues. There is obviously much more work to do, and I absolutely recognise the concerns raised in the debate and through the APPG report.

The Opposition spokesperson, the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), asked about capital spend in previous years, and I will have to write to him about that. On his comment about announcements in the Budget, our contribution to the defence investment plan, including at the extended level set out yesterday, will avoid impact on frontline NHS services, patient safety, investment in technology and the delivery of the new hospital programme.

[Ben Maguire]

I am pleased to hear about the review the Minister has announced. Can she give us any sense of a timeline for when that review might conclude?

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I am not the Minister for this policy area, but I will ask my hon. Friend the Minister for Secondary Care what information might be available about timescales. I understand Members’ interest as to when the review might conclude.

We have had a useful debate and I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Strangford for bringing the debate before the House. I again thank the APPG’s members and the air ambulance sector for all their continued excellent work.