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helipad | www.daat.org
Challenges Collaboration
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The worldwide Coronavirus pandemic temporarily grounded Devon Air Ambulance’s helicopters but innovation, co-operation, collaboration and hard work soon got us back ying again
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s with nearly all aspects of our personal, work and social lives, the Coronavirus pandemic created unprecedented challenges for air ambulances around the UK as they wrestled with how to operate their helicopters at the same time as keeping aircrew and patients safe from the virus. With the safety of patients and staff of paramount importance to Devon Air Ambulance, the painful and difficult decision was taken by the senior leadership team to suspend flight operations at the end of March. There were many complex factors which resulted in this decision being made. One of the major considerations was the limited space inside our EC135 helicopter, which would have made it impossible to
Paramedic training in full PPE inside the odi ed helicopter
keep the crew protected from the virus if one of their patients was poorly with it, or for a member of crew – who may have been asymptomatic - passing it onto their patient and each other. While it quite quickly became apparent that our clinical staff would need to wear appropriate PPE when dealing with patients, this threw up its own unique challenges. Verbal communication between clinicians and the pilot is paramount in terms of safety, so how would they speak to each other, and to colleagues on the ground, if they were wearing protective face masks? Everyone at Devon Air Ambulance is passionate about the critical care that is provided to our patients, so it was a worrying
