Charity pledges support for helipad at Luton and Dunstable Hospital if new location can be found

Robert Bertram, Chief Executive of the HELP Appeal. Picture supplied by County Air Ambulance Trust

The project was put on hold because its indended location was deemed unsuitable during renovation works

A charity has pledged to support a helipad project at Luton and Dunstable Hospital with replacement funding, if a new location can be found for it.

The HELP Appeal dedicated to funding hospital helipads donated £2.5m towards a £5m target for the development.

Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust planned to have an air ambulance linked to the hospital’s emergency and critical care services, with the help of public fundraising.

It was revealed earlier this month that the helipad scheme has been grounded for now because the area where it was intended to be located was deemed unsuitable, during extensive renovation work at the hospital.

The charity has funded 49 NHS hospital helipads across the country involving more than 25,000 landings already, with the significant medical benefits of being situated close to emergency departments.

As a national charity, the HELP Appeal is committed to funding lifesaving hospital helipads wherever one is needed, according to its chief executive Robert Bertram.

The HELP Appeal has pledged its full support to Luton and Dunstable Hospital and is committed to providing replacement funding, once a new helipad location has been identified and agreed, he explained.

“There are 50 more being funded thanks to the charity’s supporters across the country,” he said.

“We look forward to working with Melanie Banks and her team at Luton and Dunstable Hospital in the future to help them build a state-of-the-art helipad, which will save time in transferring seriously ill patients to its emergency department for lifesaving treatments.

“In the meantime, we’ve donated to Beds and Herts emergency critical care scheme (BHECCS) and the East Anglian Air Ambulance charity to help ensure patients across Luton, Dunstable and beyond receive the best possible care to increase their chances of survival.

“BHECCS is a specialist pre-hospital enhanced care team of volunteer doctors and paramedics, who provided lifesaving assistance to more than 450 patients across Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire last year.

“The funding is being used to provide crews with new personal protective equipment, so that they’re kept safe when responding in challenging environments.

“The HELP Appealhas also donated more than £200,000 to the construction of helipads at East Anglian Air Ambulance bases, ensuring it can deliver the highest standard of pre-hospital care to patients across Bedfordshire in the quickest possible time.”

The hospitals trust chief executive David Carter told a Central Bedfordshire Council social care, health and housing overview and scrutiny committee meeting the helipad project is being paused.

“This is because, as part of our works on the emergency department, we found some issues where the helipad development wasn’t possible where we thought it was going to be,” he said.

The trust’s director of redevelopment and strategic planning Ms Banks confirmed that a complete rebuild or relocation of the hospitals in Luton and Bedford would require £2.5bn “which isn’t possible in the current climate”.

A report on the reasons behind pausing the helipad project is being called for by Luton Borough Council’s scrutiny health and social care review group.

Visit www.helpappeal.org.uk to support the HELP Appeal.