7 Aug 2024
In June 2024, our advanced trauma team – which operates 24/7, 365 days a year – attended to 183 patients. This is once again an increase from the previous month.
The most common mechanism of injury for the majority of this month’s patients was assault, resulting in 48 patients (26 per cent). Falls resulted in 30 patients (16 per cent), transport-related injuries 24 patients (13 per cent), medical-related injuries 19 (10 per cent) and accidents 14 (eight per cent). There were also 48 patients who had other or unknown incidents.
These individuals were so critically injured that they did not have time to make it to hospital and needed our service. Bringing the hospital to the scene of the incident, our crew this month provided 30 blood transfusions, 30 rapid sequence intubations, 18 femoral arterial lines, four thoracotomies (open chest surgery) and more on the roadside. Some of these procedures can only be performed by our team on scene in London.
We attend to the entire area within the M25, serving the 10 million who visit, live and work in London. In June 2024, the most frequently visited borough was Ealing, followed by Lambeth and then Tower Hamlets. Once our medics reach a patient and they have been stabilised, we accompany them to the nearest major trauma centre in a road ambulance.
This month, 57 patients were taken to The Royal London Hospital (42 per cent), 36 patients were taken to St Mary’s Hospital (26 per cent), 22 to St George’s Hospital (16 per cent) and 19 to King’s College (14 per cent). One patient throughout the whole month was flown back to a hospital – this time it was to St George’s.
If you’d like to read May 2024’s mission report to compare figures, please do so here.
On average we attend to five critically injured people every day. But we’re a charity, reliant on public support to be able to operate. It costs £15 million a year to run our life-saving service, can you help support us today?