Major Trauma Centres: Helipads

Marie Goldman Excerpts

Thursday 29th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Marie Goldman (Chelmsford) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing this important debate, which is very timely because exactly this issue is affecting my local hospital. I want to tell Members about it, but I first want to set the scene by reiterating some of the things that other hon. Members across the House have already said. When someone is critically injured, every single minute—in fact, every single second—counts. Air ambulances, with an average journey time across the country of 17 minutes, can get patients seen by specialist doctors and nurses as quickly as possible. That is why it is critical that major trauma centres have helipads that are open 24/7.

[Tessa Munt]

I went out with the South Western ambulance service to a cycle accident in my constituency, where a young man had fallen off on a road and was unconscious. When the air ambulance came, the doctors on board were able to stabilise him. I then went with him in the ambulance to the hospital in Bath. Air ambulances can sometimes stop the progression of injuries as well as take people to hospital. They are brilliant.

[Marie Goldman]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Air ambulances have specialist expertise on board, so they do not just provide transportation; they provide lifesaving interventions along the way.

The advantage of the speed of an air ambulance can be completely lost if it cannot land on top of a hospital. Broomfield hospital, run by the Mid and South Essex foundation trust, is the main hospital that serves my Chelmsford constituency—it is not in my constituency, but it is just outside it—and it has a helipad. I pay huge tribute to Essex and Herts Air Ambulance; the crews and the communities that fund it are doing absolutely phenomenal work. However, when I met representatives from the air ambulance, they told me that every day when they do their briefing to the crews, they hold their breath a little bit and roll their eyes, because they know the answer to the question, “Will Broomfield’s helipad be open for long today?” is usually no.

Frustratingly, I have tried to persuade Mid and South Essex foundation trust to work with Essex and Herts Air Ambulance, Air Ambulances UK and the HELP Appeal to implement a solution—which does exist; it is just about getting the will for it—but I have met with so much reluctance from the hospital trust to do that or even to have meetings and listen to the problem. I get pushback and pushback, and it is incredibly frustrating. That is one of the reasons why we need to have national leadership on this issue. Although we can individually try to influence it, sometimes we just get pushback.

I know that hospitals and hospital leaders are under lots of constraints, but the solution seems so obvious when we already have a helipad at Broomfield hospital. Yes, it needs upgrading, but there is a solution for that, and yes, it needs to be staffed, but there is a solution for that. Getting pushback from the hospital itself is incredibly frustrating. I should say that Broomfield hospital is a major trauma centre, and its helipad is listed in the APPG report as one that needs to be open 24/7—but it is not. The hospital also has a specialist burns unit, so it is part of the national asset list. Of course, with burns, like so many other things, the speed of treatment is incredibly important.

When Essex and Herts Air Ambulance helicopters cannot land on top of the hospital, they have to go elsewhere. Their alternative landing site is Chelmer Valley high school, which is a few minutes down the road. There is a lot of traffic around the hospital a lot of the time, which adds to journey times, but landing there also means that an ordinary ambulance has to come to meet the helicopter. That takes up the time not just of an air ambulance, but of an ordinary road-based ambulance.

There were 12 or maybe even 14 road-based ambulances queuing up at the A&E department at Broomfield hospital just a few days ago. Members will know that we are not awash with loads of ambulances. If an ambulance’s time is being taken up unnecessarily—or necessarily, as it turns out, but it should not be the case—by having to meet an air ambulance, then it is not available to do other work. That ambulance transfer is also estimated to cost anywhere between £200 and £600 per journey. That is crazy. We are throwing away money when, if we just got the helipad at Broomfield open 24/7, it would be so much better.

Burns patients sometimes do not even end up coming to Chelmsford; they end up going to Thames Valley instead, which I find ridiculous. We also need to think about national security and the assets that are around London. Broomfield is not very far from our capital city. If there were a major incident in London, Broomfield hospital, just outside Chelmsford, would surely be one of the centres asked to respond, so having its helipad open would make so much sense.

Other hospitals in the east of England—I am an east of England MP—are also in the report, such as Addenbrooke’s, which has a red rating because it has serious problems with 24/7 access. It is the only major trauma centre for more than 6 million people, and yet new building on its own campus is set to make its helipad inoperable. How mad is that? We have invested in a helipad, and then we are saying, “Oh no, let’s just build some more houses around it and stop it operating.” That does not make any sense whatsoever. We have invested public funds in this, and we are wasting them.

The scale of the problem is set out in the APPG report and by the hon. Member for Strangford, so I will not go through all of it. I know that others have highlighted rural issues, but this is not only a rural problem: none of the three London hospitals assessed has 24/7 helipad access. My word, what are we doing? Why does this access matter for patients? It matters a lot: a Kent, Surrey and Sussex study identified five extra survivors for every 100 patients treated at a hospital with a 24/7 helipad. That is a pretty good case for doing something about it, surely.

We have talked about planning and the Government’s position, but we need central data so that we understand exactly what is going on. The APPG has actually done loads of the hard work, as has Air Ambulances UK. I want to massively thank the air ambulance crews, and the public for funding them. Members across the House have said that this should not be a matter of charitable funding alone. We do, but should not, rely on the charitable sector to step in all the time for these sorts of things. Yes, the sector can help, but it should be helped by Government as well.

Air ambulances are obviously experiencing the increase in fuel prices, which is massively putting up their costs. London Air Ambulance’s fuel costs have gone up by 116%. That is huge and so difficult; think of the extra fundraising that needs to be done to cover it. We need to step in and make sure that all the fuel being used is taking patients directly to hospital, not elsewhere. What would the Liberal Democrats do? We would integrate air ambulances into the NHS emergency response through a national commissioning framework, while keeping their charitable fundraising status. That would expose and fix exactly the problems that I have mentioned. Of course, we also need to end ambulance handover delays, but helipad access is a very specific problem.

I have some questions for the Minister. Will the Government collect and publish 24/7 helipad data for every trauma centre? Will hospital helipads be safeguarded in planning, like aerodromes are? Specifically, what is being done to keep Addenbrooke’s helipad operational? That is a really important question for the east of England in particular. Will the Minister help me get the helipad at Broomfield hospital open 24/7 as well? If she or one of her colleagues would be willing to meet me on that subject, I would be very grateful. Will the Government also publish how many air ambulances are at risk of closure or of cutting services because of the challenges they face?

I want us to recognise that hospital helipads are absolute lifelines. Survival should not depend on whether a helipad happens to be open at that time of day, or on where people live, and yet that is what is happening at the moment. Patients—our constituents—deserve better.