Life-saving charity in Essex flying high after donation

Charles Church Essex has donated £5,000 to the Essex & Herts Air Ambulance (EHAAT) to help fund new life-saving technology.

The charity, which has airbases in North Weald and Earls Colne, is investing in state-of-the-art i-STAT portable blood analysers that will help their critical care teams continue to offer the best pre-hospital emergency care  to gravely ill and injured patients. 

Charles Church Essex donated £5,000 from their Community Champions budget towards the appeal, and Managing Director Richard Hush visited EHAAT’s HQ in Earls Colne to discover more about the new technology. 

Using the i-STAT readers, EHAAT’s doctors and critical care paramedics, attending to patients by air ambulance or rapid response vehicle, will be able to get accurate information on-scene rather than waiting until the patient arrives at hospital. 

The i-STAT helps them to target care and determine which hospital or major trauma centre is best equipped to offer the patient the best outcome for their injuries. 

Laurie Phillipson, EHAAT’s Centre for Excellence Clinical Academic Fellow, said: “With the new i-STAT Alinity devices, we are essentially taking a small laboratory to the patient. We will be able to analyse a patient's blood sample to obtain real-time, diagnostic results that will help guide our treatment.  

"We will be able to assess blood gases and electrolytes and with a brand new cartridge, blood biomarkers that can indicate traumatic brain injury and its severity. The device will facilitate research and the EHAAT Centre for Excellence vision to provide better head injury care for the critically injured. We are enormously grateful to the Persimmon Community Champions Fund for helping us to realise this vision and enhance care for all patients." 

Richard Hush said: “At Charles Church, we pride ourselves on creating a lasting legacy in the communities within which we are building, and what better way to do that than support this our local life-saving charity. 

“These devices could be the difference between life or death for some of the most critically ill or injured patients and we are delighted to have been able to donate this money towards this new advancement in care offered by Essex & Herts Air Ambulance.” 

The Essex business is completing the final stages of the Charles Church at De Vere Grange development in Earls Colne and is due to start on a new community in Ongar, close to the North Weald base, this year.