A life-saving air ambulance charity is pitching in towards the NHS' pandemic response.

Essex & Herts Air Ambulance (EHAAT) is helping transfer Covid-19 patients between hospitals.

The team based at the charity’s North Weald Airbase travel by helicopter or car to hospitals in need of aid and accompany patients to receiving hospitals.

Stuart Elms, clinical director at EHAAT said: “As soon as we identified there was a need, we put plans in place in early January to help with these transfers with the same outstanding level of care and clinical governance that we apply to our usual caseload. The first request came in within a few days, and we were happy to help. This is not affecting our ability to respond to emergencies in the normal way, but we will continue to review this.

“The system is currently incredibly busy, and we are helping to move Covid-19 patients from hospitals in our region which are facing challenges due to the unprecedented number of patients they are seeing, to those with capacity. The aim is to help level the load and redistribute this huge demand.

“We are doing everything we can to keep our patients, staff, volunteers and supporters safe at the moment and East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust (EEAST) are helping us by vaccinating all our frontline patient-facing staff."