Although there is a National Health Service in the UK, local Health
Trusts discharge the responsibilities for care in their own areas. A
Health Trust may have been associated with the initiation of an Air
Ambulance project, but generally it has withdrawn to a greater or
lesser degree from their on-going funding, which has been picked up by
a specialist charity to continue to provide the service. It is
convenient in Helis.com to present these local Air Ambulances as
units, so we can show ownership of individual air frames, although
in practice there is no formal control over them from a national
level, or even sometimes from the Heath Trust over the Air ambulance
in the area it operates.
As of 2026, Air ambulance charities carry out an average of 134 missions every day.
Supporting these charities is Air Ambulances UK (AAUK), the national body representing and championing the United Kingdom’s 21 independent air ambulance services, providing funding support, advocacy, and coordination across the sector.
Historically, the organization's roots trace back to the establishment of the National Association of Air Ambulance Services (NAAAS) in 1999, eventually evolving through several iterations—including the Association of Air Ambulances—before becoming Air Ambulances UK in 2019. Its primary goal is to ensure the best possible chance of survival for patients requiring urgent pre-hospital care by providing vital national funding, increasing public awareness, and advocating for key policy issues like improved helipad accessibility and safe access to NHS patient data. Operating as a collective voice for the sector, AAUK facilitates the exchange of knowledge and professional excellence among its members, who together complete more than 48,000 missions annually and rely almost entirely on charitable donations rather than statutory government funding.
Units within this Organisation |
 Model Types
|
|
