The White Rose County will have its very own flying doctors thanks to a deal with Yorkshire Air Ambulance.
Eleven specialist emergency medicine consultants and anaesthetists will join crews aboard the charity’s two helicopters.
And the doctors will be on-call and ready to scramble for 12 hours of every day as part of a partnership between Yorkshire Ambulance Service (YAS) and the charity.
The team will carry additional drugs and will be able to perform emergency anaesthesia and life-saving surgical procedures at the scene of an incident.
Doctors have been aboard Yorkshire Air Ambulance helicopters on an ad hoc basis for the last 10 years.
But now YAS doctors will be seconded to the flying service.
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Yorkshire Critical Care Team leader, Dr Andrew Pountney, said: “Thanks to this initiative we now have a dedicated and funded system to ensure that a consultant with appropriate training and experience in pre-hospital emergency medicine can respond every day of the year.”
The airborne doctors will also work alongside emergency response crews on the ground.
Dr Poutney added: “This is about complementing the excellent service already provided by Yorkshire Air Ambulance paramedics and other frontline response teams.
WATCH the Yorkshire Air Ambulance in action below
“For the vast majority of the time the doctors will have a vital role providing support for the paramedics when they are using their extended skills.
“The doctors will also be able to make advanced clinical decisions and deliver critical care interventions very quickly, including pre-hospital emergency anaesthesia.
“There will be occasions when having an experienced doctor on board will mean that certain life-saving procedures can be done on scene.”
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The Yorkshire Air Ambulance are unveiling the first of two new state-of-the-art helicopters on Tuesday.
The rapid response emergency service is replacing both its current ageing aircraft – G-SASH and G-CEMS - with the latest generation Airbus H145 helicopter.
The first of those aircraft will take to the skies over Yorkshire in late summer 2016 after a full medical fit-out and crew training.
The Airbus H145 is used by military, police and air rescue services around the world. The night-capable aircraft has exceptional flight performance and will have significantly lower operational and maintenance costs.
