Major Trauma Centres: Helipads

Josh Newbury Excerpts

Thursday 29th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who represents a beautiful part of Ulster, on securing the debate. I thank him for doing so and for his keen interest in debates that I have secured in the past. I have one in Westminster Hall next Tuesday on train services; I hope to see him there.

When somebody is seriously injured, every minute matters. For people living in or visiting the most rural parts of my Cannock Chase constituency, getting to the right hospital can already mean a long journey. Air ambulances do an incredible job: they bring expert care to the people who need it most, often in the most frightening circumstances imaginable.

My husband’s family have personal experience of this because, 20 years ago, when my niece was just a year old, she came down with a nasty pneumonia infection. It got to the point where she was in a critical condition and doctors said she needed to get to A&E as quickly as possible. I think there was some trouble on the roads that night, so she was taken by air ambulance from Evesham in Worcestershire all the way to the Royal Stoke university hospital. She had to be in hospital for a few weeks after that, such was the severity of that infection, but the air ambulance undoubtedly saved her life that day, and she lives to tell the tale as a brilliant 21-year-old.

In January, I went to the Cosford airbase, headquarters of the Midlands Air Ambulance Charity. I met its CEO, Hanna Sebright, and one of my constituency predecessors who is working with them. I heard about the challenges that the sector faces. Air Ambulances UK’s review has identified significant gaps in hospital helipad provision across the country. Royal Stoke, which serves many of my constituents, has been given an amber rating, meaning that further action is needed. New Cross hospital in Wolverhampton has been given a red rating, meaning that priority action is required. That is genuinely concerning for patients.

New Cross does not currently have a hospital helipad, which means a patient who needs urgent specialist care might face a long journey by road, or air ambulance crews might need to fly them further to another hospital, as was the case for my niece. Every extra minute matters, so the longer a crew spend getting from one hospital to another, the longer they may be unavailable to help the next person who needs them.

We have seen a similar problem at Birmingham children’s hospital, which provides specialist major trauma care for children right across the west midlands, including Staffordshire. There is no helipad at the hospital, meaning that children brought in by air ambulance need a further road transfer, just like that described by the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Ben Maguire), typically adding 10 to 15 minutes to the journey. That is despite the fact that the hospital sits right next to Queen Elizabeth hospital Birmingham, which has a helipad.

For families facing what might be the most frightening day of their lives, those are precious minutes. In some cases, crews from Staffordshire might need to consider flying a child to Alder Hey children’s hospital in Liverpool, because that often offers a quicker route to getting the care they need. I am very concerned about that. These are hospitals that people across my region and in the wider west midlands rely on at the worst moments of their lives.

Where a helicopter cannot land directly, patients might need to be transferred. As we have heard, that can have disastrous consequences. For someone with, for example, a serious head injury, major trauma or another life-threatening condition, this is the time we should be doing everything we can to save their life. I think about my constituents in our rural villages who are already likely to be further away from emergency services. They deserve the same confidence as anyone that, if the worst happens, everything possible is being done to get them the right treatment quickly.

I know how strongly people in Cannock Chase feel about access to healthcare. We have lost our minor injuries unit, so local people know what it means when a service they once relied on is no longer there. That is one reason why I am really pleased to see this Government’s focus on improving access to healthcare, including through neighbourhood health centres, because bringing services closer to people’s homes really matters. I welcome that ambition.

However, we also need to think about what happens when someone needs emergency treatment that cannot be provided locally. Our neighbourhood services must be backed up by hospitals that can receive patients quickly day or night. A helipad that cannot be used around the clock can leave a gap in that journey, and when an emergency happens at 2 am, a patient cannot wait until the hospital’s facilities are fully up and running.

I appreciate that not every hospital has the same needs. We have heard very different cases from across the country, but we should have a clear understanding of which hospitals need helipads, which need improvements to their helipads, and which have facilities that cannot be used at all hours. We also need to make sure that recommendations are followed through. If an assessment identifies a problem, there should be a plan to address it, rather than the same concerns appearing in report after report, which we have seen for many years.

I too have a few questions for the Minister, which echo some of what she has already heard this debate. Will the Government look at a clearer national approach to hospital helipads, so that hospitals and the NHS trusts that look after them know what is expected of them when it comes to access around the clock? Will the Minister work with relevant trusts to look at the concerns raised around Royal Stoke and New Cross, and make sure that any necessary improvements are properly considered? Will the Government look at how essential helipad improvements might be funded where charities cannot meet the full cost?

Nobody wants to think about the moment in which a family member is seriously injured and an air ambulance has to be called, but those moments do happen. When they do, people need to know the system is ready for them. For my constituents in Cannock Chase, particularly those living in rural communities—or those in trouble in the forest itself—this is about knowing that that distance will not count against them when they need urgent care.

We are right to focus on bringing more healthcare closer to home, but we must also make sure that, when people need specialist and emergency treatment, there is a clear and reliable route to get them there. Thanks to air ambulances, that is often the case—they often step in and do incredible things for our constituents. If they can save someone’s life, we should be doing everything we reasonably can to make sure that a hospital is ready for them when they arrive.