Princess Anne set to visit Maidstone Hospital to unveil new helipad

The Princess Royal will be visiting Maidstone Hospital on Wednesday, December 11 to officially open the 24-hour helipad which the Children’s Air Ambulance will make use of.

Along with Kent Surrey Sussex Air Ambulance, the Children’s Air Ambulance is very grateful to the Helicopter Emergency Landing Pads Appeal for donating £300,000 to Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust enabling them to build the all-weather pad which will facilitate landings.

The Children’s Air Ambulance recently undertook a mission, transporting a young patient all the way from Hull to Tunbridge Wells to receive expert care as we landed at their emergency helipad – covering 200 miles in under 2 hours! So the permanent landing space at Maidstone is a fabulous asset to our charity as well as other emergency services.

The purpose of the Children’s Air Ambulance is the safe, timely air transfer of paediatric and neonatal patients to specialist care centres throughout the UK. Developing landing sites such as those at Maidstone Hospital reduces the need for critically unwell children and babies to have to undergo a secondary road transfer at a time when they are most clinically vulnerable.

It will help increase the life chances of seriously ill or injured patients being brought to Maidstone hospital for treatment or flown from the hospital to specialist centres elsewhere in the country for treatment.