Landings &Safe Swift

Our network of 196 Community Landing Sites are a vital part of DAA’s night flying operation. These presurveyed and lit sites, often located in remote areas, aid safe landing during the hours of darkness.

Once a patient has been treated at the scene of the incident, our crew will decide the best course of onward travel to hospital, either by helicopter or land ambulance. In some cases, our crew will travel with their patient in a land ambulance enabling them to continue to monitor their condition and to administer additional specialist treatment along the route if needed.

Alongside our network of community landing sites are a group of landing sites vital to our operations, which might be more obvious than you first think; these are hospital helipads.

There are four main hospital helipads in Devon that we regularly fly to, North Devon District Hospital in Barnstaple, Torbay Hospital, Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital, and Derriford Hospital in Plymouth. Each of these hospitals has a helipad available to us and other Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) organisations day and night, and are managed by a team of dedicated staff within each hospital.

Our incredible pilots make landing a helicopter look easy, but helipads are often located in urban areas with lots of surrounding obstacles to negotiate. This means that there are strict regulations that must be adhered to in order to keep everyone safe.

Managing a helipad is a big job within a hospital, involving a high level of collaboration between different departments and a job that perhaps doesn’t get the wider recognition.

A hospital helipad is classified by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) as a ’Complex Environment’ and therefore needs to be what is termed as Class 1 compliant. This requires the helipad to be:

- A minimum size to provide a suitable area for a helicopter to land safely back onto the helipad in the event of a critical power failure.

- The helipad is free of obstructions such as buildings, trees or other overhead obstacles, allowing at least two approach and take off paths.

The distance of obstacles in relation to the helipad landing site is determined

South West Hospital Helipads

Each hospital is responsible for ensuring that their helipad remains Class 1 compliant and DAA has a responsibility to ensure that we approach and depart from the helipads in predetermined approach paths. These paths can change from time to time, for instance, when construction work is taking place nearby there may be temporary obstacles in play, such as a crane or other high level construction machinery. When this happens, we will meet with the hospital helipad team, construction managers and everyone concerned to determine whether it remains safe for us to land.

Of course, the ultimate purpose of the helipad is to allow safe and swift access for the arrival of our patient in order to receive the onward treatment they urgently need. To ensure a smooth and short transition from the helipad into the hospital, each helipad is located as closely as possible to the emergency department.

Our landing site team meets regularly with the health & safety and facilities teams at each hospital to ensure we are



Your donation will help save lives • www.daat.org Find out more about Community Landing Sites - daat.org/landing-sites i 39