The Children’s Air Ambulance introduces England’s first helicopter incubator

The Children’s Air Ambulance (TCAA) has launched the first incubator on a rotary-wing aircraft in England. It will be used to assist specialist NHS transport teams during life-saving flights.

The national transfer service provides the only intensive care aircraft in the country dedicated to transferring critically ill babies and children, at a high and safe speed, from local hospitals to specialist paediatric and neonatal treatment centres.

The charity, NHS Clinical Partner Teams at Embrace Yorkshire and Humberside Infant and Children Transport Service (Embrace), which is part of Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, Bristol's Newborn Emergency Stabilisation and Transfer (NEST), Southampton Oxford Neonatal Transport (SONeT), International Biomedical and Gama Aviation collaborated on a bespoke design, bringing three Neonatal Transport Systems onboard its brand new AgustaWestland AW169 aircraft – now  provided by Sloane Helicopters Ltd.

Care in the air

The bespoke TCAA Neonatal Transport Systems have been designed with input from leading neonatal transfer clinicians, to ensure outstanding care in the air. They feature an incubator, as well as patient monitor, ventilator, suction unit, four infusion devices, oxygen and specialist Nitric Oxide Therapy.

These Neonatal Transport Systems are vital and the large cabin of the AW169 aircraft allows access to both sides of the system and excellent visibility from all four seats, allowing specialists and parents to monitor the patient.

Lead Nurse for NEST, Patrick Turton, said: “Having the incubators will mean we can fly many more babies than we currently can. Before now, we were unable to safely use the helicopter to transfer our smaller infants, who need higher levels of support.

“This incubator means we will be able to get the smaller, more fragile babies to the specialist services they need more quickly, reducing the anxiety and worry of the parents, and ultimately reducing the time taken for the infants to get the specialist support they need.”

Dr Sarah Davidson, Neonatal Consultant at University Hospital Southampton and SONeT Wessex Lead, added: “Working with TCAA provides so many benefits, including reduced transfer times, reaching patients more quickly to deliver expert care and treatment at the scene, bringing babies closer to home when a mother delivers in another part of England, moving patients as an emergency to specialist neonatal units and repatriating them back to local units.”