Community Helipads: Rural Access

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2025 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Lilian Greenwood)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I offer my congratulations and thanks to the hon. Member for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire (Mr MacDonald) for bringing this debate to the House and allowing what has been a very useful discussion.

I begin by acknowledging the vital role played by air ambulances and search-and-rescue helicopters in saving lives. Across the United Kingdom there are 21 air ambulance charities, covering all regions of the country by air and also, often, by land in rapid response vehicles. In Scotland, the Scottish Ambulance Service, funded by the Scottish Government, helps to convey patients to hospital from some of the most remote areas of the United Kingdom. Some of those areas are represented here this morning.

As the hon. Member highlighted from his own family’s experiences—I hope his wife is recovering—these dedicated teams serve communities across the UK day and night and often in really challenging conditions, providing lifesaving care when it is needed most and delivering patients directly to major trauma centres and other specialist medical facilities. It is not only air ambulances that save lives. Bristow Helicopters operates a dedicated fleet of search-and-rescue helicopters on behalf of His Majesty’s Coastguard. From 10 bases, stretching from Newquay in the south-west to Sumburgh in the Shetland Islands, these crews stand ready to respond in order to save lives at sea and on land. When capacity allows, they also support the NHS to ensure that patients receive lifesaving care when air ambulances are unable to operate—for example, in particularly bad weather. I thank all members of our air ambulance and search-and-rescue teams for their continuing commitment to saving lives.

In more remote regions, such as the highlands and islands of Scotland, air ambulance aircraft play a crucial role in transferring patients from smaller hospitals to specialist centres. These operations may be supported by HM Coastguard search-and-rescue air assets when capacity allows and when air ambulances are unavailable or where conditions are beyond the capabilities of smaller air ambulances. Working hand in hand with NHS colleagues, these teams ensure that patients receive the highest standards of care swiftly and efficiently, no matter the distance or challenge.

However, this vital service depends on the availability of helicopter landing sites that helicopter operators are able and willing to use. These landing sites range from helipads and airfields to community spaces, playing fields and car parks, most of which require patients to be transported to and from them by land ambulance. Currently, the CAA does not formally regulate any of these helipads or landing sites. Although the CAA has best practice guidance—as the hon. Member highlighted—for hospital helipads, known as CAP 1264, it is not mandatory guidance. Helicopter operators can face unique challenges at these sites, including questions about legal responsibility for site safety and ensuring that there are no obstructions or bystanders who could be harmed by the powerful winds or downdraughts generated by a helicopter landing or taking off. As the hon. Member set out, that was made evident in 2022, when the downdraught produced by a search-and-rescue helicopter fatally injured one bystander, and seriously injured another, while it was arriving at Derriford hospital in Plymouth.

Following that incident, HM Coastguard helicopters took the decision that they will transfer patients using helipads only where there is clear responsibility and accountability for safety at the site, as well as a helicopter operations manual that manages known risks. When those safety requirements are satisfied, ultimately it is still the decision of the pilot in command of a helicopter to make a dynamic risk assessment of landing at a particular site, based on the company’s standard operating procedures, safety management systems, weather conditions, and the situation on the ground on the day—these are professionals who can make such judgments.

The Department for Transport continues to work with NHS Scotland, His Majesty’s Coastguard and helicopter operators to encourage all parties to work together to ensure safety at landing sites. I completely understand the frustration of the hon. Member for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire on behalf of his constituent; he described the situation where his constituent had to be transported to a boggy field rather than a helipad. I understand why he has asked about the role of the Health and Safety Executive, which is investigating the Derriford situation.

It would not be right for me to comment on or seek to intervene in a live investigation—the HSE is not responsible to the Department for Transport in any case—but my officials are working closely with the coastguard, the CAA, the NHS, and HEMS operators, as well as consulting with HSE to understand the concerns and ensure that operators can continue to fly into hospital helipads safely. But the decision about whether to land at any particular site is always at the discretion of the pilot in command.

As the hon. Member for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire set out, at the moment coastguard helicopters are not landing at Portree because they will only land at sites where they know who is responsible and accountable for safety, and where there is a helicopter operations manual to help ensure safe operations. If someone from Portree and Braes Community Trust or NHS Scotland is willing to take responsibility for the site and produce a helicopter operations manual, the coastguard and the helicopter operator will consider landing at the site. I appreciate that this sounds like a huge undertaking, but it is worth saying that the site at Portree is not wholly dissimilar to the site at Arran, where the helicopter operating manual, which sounds like it might be a weighty tome, is only four pages long. It sets out a responsible person and the operations. The manuals can be 60 pages long—it depends on the complexity of the site and how busy it is. There is potentially a way forward, and the hon. Member knows that the Department will work with him and others to help find a solution.

The Government recognise the crucial role that helicopter landing sites in rural areas, especially in the far north of Scotland, play in ensuring that local residents and visitors can access the highest possible standards of healthcare in an emergency. We are also cognisant of the potential risks to bystanders, ground staff and aircraft crew and patients when such sites are not properly managed and lack sufficient oversight.

Since the Derriford incident, the Government have taken on a collaborative role with the blue-light aviation sector, and we remain committed to working together with all parties as one team to explore solutions that are capable of both advancing safety and safeguarding the provision of this lifeline service. I am sure that the Department and ministerial colleagues will be happy to work with the hon. Member for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire to look at the detail of this particular case and see if we can assist.

[Sarah Dyke]

I also want to celebrate and thank all ambulance crews, as well as everybody working in the NHS, for the brilliant work they do providing this service. Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. Since its first mission in 2000, the team has responded to 29,000 missions—an average of eight missions a day— and each mission costs around £3,500.

As well as celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance, does the Minister recognise the vital service our air ambulances provide, as well as the work they do to provide rural services? Will she help me to secure and protect those services for the future?

[Lilian Greenwood]

The hon. Member is absolutely right to highlight the work of Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance. I add my congratulations on their 25-year anniversary. It is clear that they have made a huge impact not just on the local community, but for the many visitors to that area. I am sure we all want to see the continuation of these vital services, which matter to so many people across this country and share a commitment to work together, where there are any issues, to ensure those services can continue. I have enjoyed today’s debate, and look forward to continuing these discussions on another occasion.

Question put and agreed to.