Wales Air Ambulance may lose donations if base moves

Charity supporters have threatened to stop donating if the Air Ambulance goes ahead with controversial base closures.

A review proposes moving helicopters from Welshpool, Powys, and Caernarfon, Gwynedd, to Rhuddlan in Denbighshire.

The charity said this would "ensure as many people as possible" benefit and allow it to respond to 139 extra calls a year.

Beryl Vaughan from Llanerfyl has helped raised £110,000 for the charity, but said she "would be thinking twice".

There are four Air Ambulance bases in total, the other two are in Cardiff and Llanelli, Carmarthenshire.

Russell George, Member of the Senedd for Montgomeryshire, said many of his constituents planned on stopping donations if the mid Wales base closes.

"We live in a very rural area and we do need it. We've got to keep the Air Ambulance base in Welshpool."

During public engagement the review heard concerns that - if bases close - donations from those areas could "decrease and destabilise the service".

In Welshpool town centre, friends Louise Clare and Jan Lee had different views.

Ms Clare said: "I do support it, but if it moved to north Wales, I wouldn't be so keen. I guess I feel it's local, so you pay for it to be here."

Ms Lee added: "Mine is a lottery donation and I've been doing it for donkey's years. I don't think I would change it, because wherever it goes it's going to be needed."

Sarah Pritchard, who lives in the town said donations could be hit "because people are angry about it".

"I hate to think that anyone would stop supporting it because everybody needs the Air Ambulance, however it's half and half," she said.

Leaders of health boards and trusts in Wales have identified what they describe as "the two strongest options" for improving the service.

Both plans would close the Welshpool and Caernarfon air bases and open a new one near the A55, with two options:

According to the review, the first plan would treat an extra 139 patients annually, with 208 more under the second.

Campaigners who want to keep the Welshpool site claim people living in rural areas would lose out.

Bob Benyon said: "We can't rationalise how they can justify closing Welshpool which can access 1,258,000 people in 24 minutes.

"That's an incredible 477,000 more than the proposed base at Rhuddlan. So, it's inevitable that the response times will be slower to a lot of people.

"They will have to circumnavigate the Clwydian Range, to reach not only Welshpool but Newtown, Llandrindod Wells, Ceredigion, Aberystwyth."

Stephen Harrhy, chief ambulance services commissioner for Wales, is leading the review and said experts were advising on the location and would not "put helicopters in a base with worse flying conditions".

The Wales Air Ambulance said medical teams in Welshpool and Caernarfon were under used and it supported the aim of the review to address underuse and unmet need.

It added that all donations would be "used in the most effective, patient-focused way".

"This means saving as many lives across Wales as possible and, in doing so, making sure that no community is materially disadvantaged," it said.