Warwick Rotarians hear about Helipads for Hospitals charity

John Novell, a former RAF Helicopter Air rescue pilot, recently told Warwick Rotarians about his campaign to ensure that all critical care hospitals have their own helipad.

Warwick Rotary President David Brain has adopted the Air Ambulance as his charity for the year.

Members were surprised to hear that although the UK is covered by 42 Air Ambulance services, all funded by volunteers, this is not matched by hospitals with helipads to receive them.

They also heard that often the Air Ambulance has to land on an adjacent playing field and patients are then transferred to an ambulance to complete their journey. With only the most critically ill patients being transferred this way, time is of the essence with many patients needing attention within the “golden hour”.

However Walsgrave Hospital does have a helipad on the roof of the car park

John, who is also a Rotarian in Rutland, set up H4H as a charity in 2016 with the initial aim of providing a helipad at Leicester Royal Infirmary, followed by Queens Hospital at Nottingham.

Helipads are best located on hospital rooftops using a lightweight aluminium deck. John has set up a local collection system in his area for Aluminium drinks cans, which are crushed at HMP Stratton into metre cube pallets.

It will take about one million cans crushed and smelted to construct one helipad.

This has the additional environmental benefit of increasing the re-cycling of cans, as far too many go to landfill, meaning less aluminium has to be mined, and less import spend.

Thanking John for his presentation Rotarian Graham Suggett said the rotary club had been unaware of the shortfall in helipads, and agreed it was essential that these are provided at the earliest opportunity.

The Warwick Rotary Club will be exploring how Rotarians across the area can help the charity achieve their target and President David Brain presented John with a cheque to help their work.