Third air ambulance on stand-by

Almost one in five air ambulance call-outs are in mid Wales

A third air ambulance has been unveiled in Wales and goes on call on Thursday.

The emergency helicopter will provide cover for mid and south-east Wales for three months over the summer. It will be based in Powys.

Ambulance chiefs will assess after the trial period whether there is a need for an extra air ambulance to be permanently on call in Wales.

Mid Wales relies heavily on the air ambulance as many parts take a long time for road ambulances to reach.

The helicopter has been loaned to the Air Ambulance Charitable Trust for a short period.

Mark Winter, a project officer with the trust, said: "We came to an agreement with our current supplier of air ambulances and we've worked with them to secure a helicopter for three months."

The trust will work during this period to see if they can sustain the sort of money needed to keep it permanently, Mr Winter said.

'One-off opportunity'

He added: "The one major benefit [of the new helicopter] is that there are no district general hospitals in Powys - you've got to go to Morriston in the west, Abergavenny, Hereford or Shrewsbury.

"When you're not well that's an awful long way to go by road. When you go by air it's a journey of about 20 minutes."

The helicopter, which will be based at Mid Wales Airport in Welshpool overnight and Newtown during the day, will operate five days a week for eight hours a day during the trial.

Bob Palmer, chairman of the air ambulance trust, has said the loan was a "one-off opportunity" that could not be missed.

Powys alone had 3,000 emergency calls over the summer last year - about a third of these were life threatening, he said.

Wales' two existing air ambulances are based at Swansea and Caernarfon and currently serve the whole country with help from a helicopter in England.