Major Trauma Centres: Helipads
Debate between Jim Shannon and Perran Moon(2 days, 11 hours ago)
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Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the potential merits of mandatory safeguarded 24/7 helipads at major trauma centres.
It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairship, Sir Alec, and I say a big thank you to all the hon. Members for coming along today. I particularly thank the Minister, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson), who has kindly agreed to step in and answer the debate, the subject of which is not her direct responsibility.
What always unites us is the fact that we come together on things that we see as good and necessary, and I am sure that everyone here would say the same. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing us to debate this important issue relating to our urgent and emergency care system—hospital helipads, the barriers that can prevent them from being used when needed, and the case for a strategic national policy. The Minister already knows that I have three asks, but the main one is to have a strategic national policy. I welcome the Government’s 10-year health plan, and I hope that such a policy will be part of it.
Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Ind)
Cornwall Air Ambulance undertook almost 1,000 missions last year, many in my Camborne, Redruth and Hayle constituency. The front helipad directly outside the emergency department at Treliske hospital, which is the only general hospital in Cornwall, was closed in March 2023 and patients have since faced longer transfers, despite assurances that the rear helipad would be upgraded. Does the hon. Member agree that the Government must accelerate a permanent solution so that lives are not put at risk by avoidable delays?
Jim Shannon
The hon. Gentleman is right to underline that issue. I understand that he has a very dispersed community, and an air ambulance in that location can shorten journey times—I will mention this in my speech in relation to an issue back home. A journey that maybe takes an hour and a half by road can be done in 15 minutes in an air ambulance. That 15 minutes can save lives. An hour and a half in an ambulance fighting to save the person in the back sometimes just does not work.
I thank the Members who are here to support this debate. I also thank the all-party parliamentary group for air ambulances for bringing this important issue to Parliament in the past, and I am happy we can have this debate today for them. I acknowledge the work of Air Ambulances UK, which provides the APPG’s secretariat, the HELP Appeal and the University of Liverpool’s flight science and technology group in developing the evidence underpinning this work, alongside the UK’s 21 air ambulance charities and the wider group of stakeholders who have contributed their expertise and support. I also thank Air Ambulance Northern Ireland for what it does. I can vouch for the air ambulances and the lives that they have saved. As I will explain later, I know people who live today because of AANI and the quick response of staff.
When someone is critically ill or seriously injured and needs specialist hospital care, can we be confident that the receiving hospital has the facilities they need that will be available when required? The same question applies during a major incident, as we have seen on several occasions this summer in my constituency and across this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, when hospitals needed to respond to a sudden surge in demand. For too many hospitals, that cannot be taken for granted.
Air ambulances across the UK play a vital role alongside the NHS in bringing specialist clinical teams to patients and helping transport them to the hospitals that are best equipped to treat them. That relates to an ask I have of the Minster, and I have shared that ask with other Members of the same mind. Across the United Kingdom, air ambulance charities attend an average 137 missions each day. For 365 days of the year, that is what they do. An estimated 23,248 helicopter missions take place annually, at an average cost of £4,748 per mission. That gives us an idea of the work they do, but there is also a cost factor, which is an important part of the debate. Those 137 missions, 365 days a year, represent around £110 million in annual costs.
Behind those figures are patients, families, clinicians and crews working in extremely difficult circumstances, but it is also important to recognise how these services are funded, and that is part of this debate. The UK’s 21 air ambulance charities operate independently of the NHS and receive no day-to-day Government funding, but the people of this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are incredibly generous. The charities rely on some £200 million in public donations each year to provide lifesaving pre-hospital care.
Despite that fact, public understanding of the independence of air ambulance charities remains limited. Research done in 2025 by Air Ambulances UK found that 53% of the public did not know that these charities operate independently of the NHS. However, they still depend on reliable NHS infrastructure, including hospital helipads, to transfer patients to the care they need. Their ability to deliver a consistent service is therefore affected by NHS infrastructure and operational arrangements beyond their direct control.
This is the thrust of the debate: when a helipad is unavailable, has restricted operating hours or cannot operate safely, additional challenges can arise in getting patients to the right place at the right time for treatment to save their lives. In some cases, staffing arrangements or restrictions outside normal operating hours can limit access even when a helipad already exists. This is an urgent and emergency care issue that requires co-ordinated leadership from the Government and the NHS.
I want to be clear that this is not a call for every hospital to have a 24/7 on-site helipad. I recognise that in Northern Ireland. I was asked by one of the officials whether we want a helipad in every hospital. No, we do not, but we want one at the Royal Victoria hospital in Belfast because that is the No.1 accident and emergency hospital. It has the surgeons, doctors and care available, and from a regional point of view, that is what I am after. Decisions must reflect clinical evidence and operational requirements. We need national leadership and a consistent policy framework to support safe, reliable, 24/7 on-site hospital helipad access whenever there is a clear clinical and operational need, which must be informed by evidence.
I will focus on three practical areas: a national policy and implementation framework, or road map, to address inconsistent provision and establish a data-led approach to safe, reliable, 24/7 on-site access; clearer NHS standards and stronger planning safeguards; and a national emergency hospital helipad infrastructure contingency fund to support urgent infrastructure needs that cannot be met through charitable funding alone.
The APPG for air ambulances has launched a report, and I have no doubt that the Minister has had a chance to look at its recommendations. I commend the APPG members, some of whom are present, for what they have done in outlining the case for safeguarded, 24/7 on-site hospital helipads at major trauma centres and specialist hospitals.
Some hospitals need infrastructure improvements, and hon. Members will speak to that. Others face restrictions in operating hours, while some require further assessment of their clinical and operational needs. Although solutions may differ for the helipads in each hospital, they should be considered within a consistent national framework. One thing we hope to come from this debate is a national framework within the NHS 10-year plan, which I very much welcome—indeed, everyone in the Chamber does. Although the report provides an initial assessment of major trauma centres and specialist hospitals, the need for a national approach extends well beyond those sites.
Air Ambulances UK’s assessment of 47 major hospital sites, updated on 10 September 2026—about six weeks ago —illustrates the scale of the issue. Six sites, or 13%, require priority action, while 16 sites, or 34%, require further action or monitoring, and 25 sites, or 53%, were assessed as being in a good position. That means that 22 of the 47 sites assessed were identified as requiring priority action, further action or monitoring. That is the target that we hope to achieve. The wider picture should be considered as the national policy develops. Air Ambulances UK’s 2026 public survey found that 83% of respondents supported a national policy to ensure that major hospitals can receive air ambulance patients at any time via an on-site helipad.
I will tell the story about my introduction to Air Ambulance NI and the wonderful people who work there. I live in a village called Portaferry at the bottom of the Ards peninsula, where the AANI service is the thin line between life and death. If a child in Portaferry suffers a critical trauma or a sudden, life-threatening medical emergency, a blue-light ambulance land journey to the Royal Belfast hospital for sick children takes well over an hour, done safely and in the best road conditions, with no cars in front or behind. In a paediatric emergency, when every single second dictates a child’s survival and long-term recovery, a 60-minute delay on a winding rural road is a luxury that those families simply do not have. I know some of the families in the Ards peninsula whose children’s lives have been saved by the presence and response of Air Ambulance NI. When it comes to transferring a vulnerable child to the regional trauma centre in less than 15 minutes, they can do it—an ambulance on the road cannot.
We cannot allow this lifeline to be taken for granted. Securing robust, long-term funding for the air ambulance service is not a bureaucratic policy debate or something that will divide us in this Chamber. It is a moral imperative to protect the lives of our children in the most rural corners of Strangford. It is not just somebody being injured on a farm or having a road traffic accident; that can happen, but it could be a boating accident where the air ambulance comes to the rescue. Some of the air ambulance team are in the Gallery, and I thank them for all their information and comments.
I will refer next to Bristol. Given Bristol royal infirmary’s role as a regional paediatric major trauma centre and a specialist children’s hospital, the case for operating its helipad 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, should be properly assessed against clinical and operational need. That is important for all of us in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Any policy must recognise the particular needs of major trauma centres and specialist hospitals while taking a broader view of the hospital helipad network across the United Kingdom.
Many other hospitals have helipads that support emergency transfers and wider patient pathways. A national policy must recognise their contribution and ensure that their operational requirements are not overlooked. The framework should provide a consistent way to assess clinical and operational need, taking account of each hospital’s role, local circumstances and the consequences of restricted access. That means identifying where clinical and operational need justifies 24/7 access and understanding the barriers that prevent it, whether that relates to infrastructure, restricted operating hours, staffing or out-of-hours arrangements. Sometimes, it can be about planning issues relating to the safety of the helicopter coming to the helipad in the hospital. That may impact on the situation.
Decisions should be based on robust data. That would allow the Government and NHS partners to prioritise action proportionately, rather than adopting a blanket requirement for every hospital. The policy should identify where new infrastructure is required, where existing facilities need improvements, where operating arrangements create barriers, and where facilities need stronger protection from surrounding development, as I was saying. In England, the NHS 10-year health plan and the medium-term planning framework of 2026-27 to 2028-29 set out ambitions to improve care, reduce delays, strengthen productivity and support more integrated services. I welcome that—it is good news, and how could anybody not welcome it? That is the sort of programme and strategy that we want, but the new hospital programme and the UK’s 10-year infrastructure strategy also provide a wider context for modernising and planning resilient infrastructure.
Higher Education Funding
Debate between Jim Shannon and Perran Moon(3 days, 11 hours ago)
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Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Ind)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I thank the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) for securing this debate.
As remarkable as it is to imagine, I also began university under Margaret Thatcher.
Perran Moon
Thanks, Jim.
The higher education funding settlement is currently failing both universities and young people in Cornwall. Institutions such as Falmouth University, based largely in my Camborne, Redruth and Hayle constituency, are central to our local economy and our skills base, yet they are increasingly being asked to educate students at a loss. Delivering a full-time degree costs more than £12,000 a year, so even when the maximum tuition fee rises past £10,000 next year, it will still fall well short.
No sector can remain sustainable if growth depends on losses, and the funding gap is particularly acute for regional and specialist institutions. Universities, therefore, are forced to compete for short-term grants and rely on international student income to balance the books. But when that income falls, courses and jobs are at risk. We have seen that play out over the summer at the University of Exeter’s Tremough campus, also in my constituency, with voluntary redundancies and the closure of its geography course.
The system is not working for students either, especially those from lower-income backgrounds. In my constituency, less than 23% of 18-year-olds went to university in 2025, compared with 51% in London. That is not because young people in Cornwall lack talent or ambition; it is because in one of the poorest regions of northern Europe, the costs of pursuing a degree with the associated debt are too great to even consider. The barriers to higher education are simply too high. Even students who remain in Cornwall but rightly want to live on campus find that the rent for a single room consumes almost their entire maintenance loan before they have spent a penny on food, travel or other essentials.
The loan system does not make things any better. Those from wealthier families may avoid taking out a loan altogether, while low-income students have no such option. A low-income student on a three-year course could be left with a £67,000 debt the moment they graduate. The interest on the debt often accumulates faster than repayments, leaving poorer graduates paying a higher effective rate for their entire careers.
Higher education should expand opportunity and drive growth in places such as Cornwall. Instead, we have a system that asks universities to do more with less while operating a student loan system that, for all intents and purposes, functions as a regressive graduate tax. We cannot build a fairer, more productive country on that foundation. I ask the Minister: what steps are the Government taking to make higher education funding fairer for students and more sustainable for universities?
Remote Coastal Communities
Debate between Jim Shannon and Perran Moon(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Perran Moon
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend, although I think the Government should go further in relation to visitor numbers, because the current proposals look only at day trippers. I will come on to that issue a little later in my speech.
We know that place matters. A recent report from the Resolution Foundation found that one third of pay differences between labour markets stem from the places themselves, not the people who live there. That should be a wake-up call for all of us. There are several interrelated pressures driving this deprivation that are not adequately currently reflected in Government assessments of need.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Gentleman for bringing forward the debate. As I said when I spoke to him earlier, there have been many debates on coastal erosion and remote coastal communities. In my constituency of Strangford, as in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, the problem of coastal erosion was financed from Westminster some years ago, but that has now fallen by the wayside. The issues are not just about coastal erosion, but about social erosion—the closure of the pub, the post office and the shop, and reduced public transport, if it even exists. Ever mindful that the drive to change that must come from Westminster, does the hon. Gentleman agree that there must be more money put into community budgets to address greater social isolation?
Perran Moon
I agree. That is why, on the back of this debate, I am calling on the Government to develop a specific remote coastal strategy.
First, there are the pressures of geographical remoteness itself. Physical isolation and sparse populations drive up the cost and complexity of delivering public services. In Cornwall, our landscape of small, scattered settlements and constrained transport links means that service provision is inherently far more expensive; those costs are not captured by labour and property indices alone.
Trail Hunting
Debate between Jim Shannon and Perran Moon(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Perran Moon
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Not only that, but in his constituency I have personally cleared land on which local hunts had created an environment for foxes to thrive. It is a complete nonsense to suggest that fox hunting is of any use in terms of pest control. It is not.
The 2004 Act was a response to the growing public outcry over the brutality of hunting practices. It made it illegal to hunt with hounds except in certain circumstances, in the case of registered hunts using scent trails.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
First, I commend the hon. Gentleman. I spoke to him before the debate, so he knows where I am coming from. I have a very different opinion, and the hon. Gentleman knows that; he respects that, and I respect him. I just wanted to put that on the record.
This is clearly a devolved matter, so England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales will make their own decisions separately. The hon. Gentleman has outlined his point of view, but does he agree that the hunting community deserve to have their voices heard and considered in that legislative process? The hunting community would dispute some of what has been said tonight. Just for the record, as a hunting man—one who has never hunted with horses or hounds—I think the hunting community should have the right to pursue it. What does the hon. Gentleman think? Before we go any further, let’s get the other point of view.
Perran Moon
I think it is absolutely right that all voices are heard, but that science is followed. Legislation should be based on evidence and science, and the evidence and the science suggest that the cruelty to the animal being pursued far outweighs the pleasure the hunt will give human beings. However, I am really happy for all voices to be heard in this debate.
British Sign Language Week
Debate between Jim Shannon and Perran Moon(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I commend the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) on setting the scene so well. She spoke excellently yesterday in the Down’s syndrome debate and her speech today was a tour de force.
Perran Moon
I wonder if the hon. Gentleman could try to talk a little slower, because the interpreters might be struggling a little bit.
Jim Shannon
Kate Hoey, formerly the hon. Member for Vauxhall, said, “Whenever Jim Shannon speaks, he gets more words to the minute that any other MP”, so the hon. Member is absolutely right to tell me to slow it down. I will do my best to slow down a wee bit, if that is possible.
The speech made by the hon. Member for Thurrock was a tour de force. It is clear to all of us here that her heart shines brightly, and we thank her for telling her story. I congratulate all the other hon. Members who have had the ability to learn sign language.
The hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) referred to one of his staff members; I say to her, keep a tight rein on him! I say that in jest, of course, because we all recognise how hard the hon. Member works.
In Northern Ireland, we have two sign languages. It is part of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. We have British Sign Language and Irish Sign Language, because we have two different traditions, and the people of those traditions have the same difficulties when it comes to sign language. Those who want to have British Sign Language can have that and those who want Irish Sign Language can have that as well. In March 2004, the Secretary of State announced the formal recognition of British Sign Language and Irish Sign Language as languages in their own right, following similar recognition of BSL in Great Britain.
Some of my staff are very assiduous. I am only as good as my staff—I say that honestly because it is true. When some constituents came into the office who were challenged and had deaf issues, my staff decided that—even though those constituents came into the office with their parents—they would learn some sign language in order to communicate with them. My staff wanted not only to understand what my constituents wanted but to engage socially with them. I think it was the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth who said that when people cannot hear anything, they do not know what is happening around them. My staff felt that it was important to do that small thing. It shows that sometimes we have to do things outside of our own systems.
British Sign Language and Irish Sign Language in Northern Ireland have their own grammar and syntax systems, rather than being visual reflections of other languages. I believe we have a good system in Northern Ireland.
I should have said that I am pleased to see the Minister for Social Security and Disability, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), in his place. I do not think I have yet been in a debate where he has been responding. I look forward to hearing what he has to say, and to the speeches of the Opposition spokespeople, the hon. Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies) and the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones).
British Sign Language is the first, or preferred, language of communication for approximately 3,500 members of the deaf population of Northern Ireland, and approximately 1,500 use Irish Sign Language. Schools have incorporated some basic sign language, and I am glad they have—it is another way of doing it.
We have many churches who engage in this. It is no secret that I am a Christian, and I like to understand that we are moving with society. There can be language issues for children at church whenever we are preaching the gospel, preaching the word of God, reading the Bible or praying, so we should have sign language in the church.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland has launched a brilliant new sign language video relay service for deaf people. There is access to the facility—24 hours a day, seven days a week—on the SignVideo app or via a call button on the PSNI website. I say to the Minister: if the PSNI has done that in Northern Ireland, perhaps we need to do that here.
I have one last point. Fury from “Gladiators” is deaf, but look at what that lady has done. There is not one man in this Chamber who would take her on, never mind any other lady—I know I wouldn’t, anyway. I will finish by saying this: if Fury can do it, you can do it as well.