Public Benefit

The Trustees have complied with the duty under the Charities Act 2011 to have due regard to public benefit guidance published by the Charity Commission which can be illustrated as follows:

Under the list of descriptions of purposes in the Charities Act 2011, KSS falls under the description of the advancement of health and saving lives; a broad description which extends beyond treatment and provision of care to the provision of items or services and facilities to ease suffering or assist recovery of people or provide comfort for patients.

The main activities undertaken to further purposes for the public benefit is the provision of expert pre-hospital emergency treatment and care. The nature of our work means the missions are often of a highly traumatic nature and we are proud of our world-class team of highly specialised doctors and paramedics who are driven every day by our purpose of saving lives and ensuring the best possible patient outcomes. This wide public benefit is inclusive of all. As well as the direct public benefit for those who have required our services, the wider public are reassured that the service is available in their area.

Our fleet of helicopters and rapid response vehicles can transport our doctors and paramedics to our patients 24/7, 365 days per year. There are times where transporting our specialised teams via ground response is more appropriate as we cover very highly populated areas of Kent, Surrey and Sussex. Weather also affects if an aircraft can be deployed, and so having the option of rapid response vehicles ensures we continue to challenge ourselves to provide the best method of service delivery. As a part of the patients, often long, recovery, we facilitate base visits and ongoing dialogue to enable patients to gain a greater understanding of our intervention with them.

Our crews are specialists in pre-hospital emergency care and KSS offers training opportunities through secondments and employment opportunities to ensure this highly specialised knowledge is shared within the wider medical community.

KSS participates in clinical audit and research to ensure the public benefit from pre-hospital interventions is led by science and to ensure a continuous cycle of improvement and innovation. This research is shared widely across other pre-hospital service providers ensuring KSS has an impact and public benefit on both a national and international platform.

KSS, in alignment with our collaboration value, advocates for partnership working across the sector and regularly attends Air Ambulances UK facilitated groups to come together with other Air Ambulance charities sharing learning to enhance public benefit. KSS offers a wide range of volunteering opportunities which are known to have a public benefit with regards social contact and learning new skills.

We engage with our audiences and communities through our social media channels, to share key educational messaging (e.g. in support of Restart a Heart Day) and raise the profile of our service.

Statement of Trustee responsibilities

The Trustees are responsible for preparing the Annual Report and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and regulations.

Charity law requires the Trustees to prepare financial statements for each financial year in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (United Kingdom Accounting Standards and applicable law). The financial statements are required by law to give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the Charity and of the profit or loss of the Charity for that period. In preparing these financial statements, the Trustees are required to:

• Select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently • Make judgments and estimates that are reasonable and prudent • State whether applicable accounting standards have been followed, subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the financial statements • Prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the

Charity will continue to operate.

The Trustees are responsible for keeping proper accounting records that disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the company and enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Companies Act 2006. They are also responsible for safeguarding assets of the Charity and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

The Trustees are responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the corporate and financial information included on the Charity’s website.

Disclosure of information to Auditors

Insofar as each of the Trustees of the Charity at the date of approval of this report is aware, there is no relevant audit information (information needed by the company’s auditors in connection with preparing the audit report) of which the company’s auditors are unaware and each Trustee has taken all of the steps that he/she should have taken as a Trustee in order to make himself/herself aware of any relevant audit information and to establish that the company’s auditors are aware of that information.

This report was approved by the Board on 8th December and signed on its behalf.

Dr H A Bowcock OBE DL

Chair of Trustees