TVAA now carring plasma onboard
English HEMS charity Thames Valley Air Ambulance (TVAA) reports that it is now carrying fresh frozen plasma (FFP) onboard its helicopter and ground-response vehicle.
English HEMS charity Thames Valley Air Ambulance (TVAA) reports that it is now carrying fresh frozen plasma (FFP) onboard its helicopter and ground-response vehicle. It is now able to administer FFP together with O-negative red blood cells (which the service has carried since 2014) to give blood transfusions to patients suffering from severe blood loss. In the first two weeks since beginning to fly with FFP, TVAA’s medical crews gave two life-saving blood transfusions with the addition of plasma to patients with major haemorrhaging.
Dr James Raitt of TVAA worked closely with Julie Staves and the Transfusion Laboratory at the John Radcliffe Hospital’s blood bank in Oxford to enable the service to carry FFP onboard. He explained: “Blood transfusions are given to treat a multitude of illnesses as well as to replace blood loss in major trauma, therefore when it is donated, it is separated into various components that are used to treat patients in different ways. Current evidence and National Institute for Health and Care Excellence trauma guidelines now recommend that if a patient is bleeding to death, they should receive both ‘packed red cells’ (which carry oxygen) and ‘plasma’ (which carries the clotting factors to help stop the bleeding).”
Until now, said Raitt, it has only been viable for TVAA to carry red blood cells onboard, a product that is more readily available, easier to store and easier to recycle. Plasma, he noted, is scarcer and once thawed has only five-day shelf-life before it has to be discarded. Raitt continued: “As the John Radcliffe is the major trauma centre for the region, we are confident that thawed plasma not used by the air ambulance in a 48-hour period can be returned to the hospital via the blood bank and used by the emergency medical teams there without any waste. This partnership is pivotal in improving survival rates for patients needing blood products (red blood cells and plasma) to treat severe haemorrhaging before they reach hospital.”
TVAA said it is committed to developing and enhancing its helicopter emergency medical service in the region to provide the highest level of emergency care outside of a hospital environment.