Type NGO | Region served East Anglia, UK | |
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Formation January 1, 1971; 46 years ago (1971-01-01) Legal status Registered Charity 1119279 Purpose Emergency Medical Provision Headquarters Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, UK | ||
Magpas Air Ambulance is an emergency medical charity that provides pre-hospital care by land and air to patients in life-threatening emergencies in the East of England and beyond. The charity is based in Cambridgeshire and is activated to serious medical incidents, using either the air ambulance or rapid response vehicle, across 11 other counties – Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Oxfordshire and London.
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It trains, equips and deploys a doctor-paramedic team to any medical emergency, illness or accident where the NHS Ambulance Service asks for on-scene medical support.
Some of the UK’s expert doctors and paramedics volunteer their own time to work with Magpas Air Ambulance.
The Magpas Air Ambulance medical team receives enhanced training which allows them to offer procedures and treatments at the scene, like general anaesthetic, which are usually only available in a hospital. Magpas Air Ambulance is not a state-funded service and relies on public donations.
History
Magpas Air Ambulance was founded as the Mid Anglia General Practitioner Accident Service in 1971 by Dr Neville Silverston OBE and Dr Derek Cracknell, who responded to road accidents in their own cars.
The origins of the name relate to a close historical and geographical association with Cambridgeshire Constabulary which, up until 1974, was known as the Mid Anglia Constabulary. The service was originally provided by General Practitioners from across the Mid Anglia area that was activated by the police and ambulance services to attend serious accidents and provide on-scene care. Magpas provided the training, equipment and governance framework. The organisation became a registered charity in 1972. The charity is now simply known as Magpas Air Ambulance after acquiring its own helicopter in 2013.
Within the first five years that Magpas was operational the road accident fatality rate in Mid Anglia fell by 36%.
In 1977, Magpas contributed to the foundation of the British Association for Immediate Care (BASICS) to raise and maintain the standards of care given by doctors responding to medical emergencies. Today BASICS is a recognised authority on pre-hospital immediate care and Magpas has remained a member ever since. As NHS Ambulance Service Paramedics developed so did the charity. It undertook detailed research into its effectiveness and reviewed the way it operated.
In 1997 the charity entered a new partnership with Cambridgeshire Constabulary to use the Police Helicopter for helicopter deployment of medical staff and patient transport.[1]
In 1999, Magpas Air Ambulance became the first service in the region to provide a night-time helicopter emergency medical service.
In 2007 the East Anglian Air Ambulance agreed to provide an Air Ambulance helicopter, dubbed Anglia Two, to be based out of RAF Wyton for Daytime missions. Although this was withdrawn in 2010, and Magpas Air Ambulance went back to providing the whole service, in conjunction with the Police.
From 2000 until 2010 the charity developed a network of Community First Responder Schemes across Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire. These local volunteers were trained by Magpas and then responded to medical emergencies such as chest pain and breathing difficulties in their local area. Their role was to treat the patient until the ambulance service arrived. In 2010 the Magpas Air Ambulance First Responders were joined with other schemes under the leadership of the East of England Ambulance Trust who will now look after the scheme.
In 2010, East Anglian Air Ambulance announced plans for their helicopter service which would no longer rely on Magpas volunteers. In 2012, Magpas Air Ambulance began flying with its own helicopter, having paid to use a police helicopter for the preceding fifteen years.
The charity was heavily involved in the creation of Pre-Hospital Emergency Medicine (PHEM), a sub-specialty of Emergency Medicine and Anesthesia recognised by the General Medical Council. Doctors train with Magpas in giving people facing serious medical emergencies lifesaving procedures and treatments which are not normally available outside of a hospital
Magpas was registered with the Healthcare Commission and was inspected by the Care Quality Commission in March 2014. This means the governance and quality assurance of the care it provides meets national standards.
In October 2015, Magpas Air Ambulance announced it would provide a 24 hour service for emergency medical care and advice, although the helicopter is not available at all times. By doing so, it became the first air ambulance charity in the East of England region to offer round-the-clock care.
The Magpas Air Ambulance medical team
The Magpas Air Ambulance medical team consists of over 40 expert doctors and paramedics, some of whom volunteer their own time and give treatments that are usually only available in a hospital, at the scene of emergencies. They support the ambulance service by using specialist skills and giving advanced medical care when time is of the essence. The team is drawn from a pool of specially trained volunteers who give up their free time to support the work of the charity and a small pool of employed and seconded staff.
The doctors come from a variety of backgrounds, some are GPs but the majority are now Emergency Physicians or Anaesthetists. The paramedics, both volunteers and seconded staff, are all drawn from the East of England Ambulance Service. Emergencies across the East of England, using a variety of helicopters and cars to reach the scene. The team is capable of sedating or anaesthetising the patient at the scene of the incident enabling hospital level care to be provided as soon as possible.
There is a training program for all new team members which covers a variety of topics and involves a large amount of simulator-based training.
Research
In 1989 the Diploma in Immediate Medical Care was established with the help of a Magpas doctor. It tests the knowledge, skills and behaviours of pre-hospital emergency care practitioners. To date, all Magpas doctors and paramedics must have passed this Diploma.
In partnership with the University Hospital of Leicester, Magpas Air Ambulance runs CTARP (the Cambridge Trauma and Audit Research Project). This project looks to identify lessons from all cases of traumatic injury occurring in Cambridgeshire. This can then be used to improve the quality of care and examine ways to prevent incidents in the first place.