The Children’s Air Ambulance (TCAA) has achieved another milestone by undertaking its first ECMO transfer to help a critically ill child get to the specialist care they urgently needed. The national transfer service provides the only intensive care helicopter in the UK dedicated to transferring critically ill babies and children, at high speed, from local hospitals to specialist paediatric and neonatal treatment centres.

The charity works closely with 11 NHS Clinical Partner Teams across the country – including the Heart Link ECMO Centre in Leicester – and uniquely offers ECMO (Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation) functionality onboard its new AgustaWestland 169 aircraft. ECMO, a system similar to a heart and lung bypass machine, is a temporary means of providing oxygen to the body when a child’s heart and/or lungs are not working effectively, and normal methods of intensive care are failing.

Commenting on the first ECMO transfer, Dr Chris Harvey, ECMO Consultant and Director of ECMO, at Leicester Children’s Hospital, said: “Moving patients on ECMO is logistically difficult and having such a professional and well-organised team such as TCAA to help in moving these critically ill children is fantastic. TCAA has worked incredibly hard with the ECMO team at Leicester to provide the necessary equipment to fly these patients, who are the sickest of the sick. Being able to move children for ongoing specialist care quickly and safely can prove lifesaving. By using TCAA in the transfer of this child, the time spent outside the safe intensive care unit, in the hostile big wide world, was cut by over two hours. This time-saving could make a real difference to these children.”

Leave a Reply