Air ambulance lottery hope

The good news follows a high level debate of the life-saving service's funding problems by MPs in the House of Commons. Montgomeryshire MP Lembit Öpik raised the issue during Prime Minister's Questions yesterday.

He said today: "The Prime Minister was clearly supportive of our air ambulance service, and I was very encouraged by his grasp of the importance of this life-saving service.

"He agreed to facilitate a meeting between representatives from the air ambulance service and his ministerial colleagues.

"This is just what we need. It gives us an opportunity to resolve the question mark over access to big lottery funds."

Mr Öpik said the Big Lottery Fund had expressed eagerness to resolve the matter and said a meeting between the key players was imminent as a direct result of his question to Tony Blair.

"We still have a major funding shortfall in Mid Wales, and unless we can fill the financial hole we will lose our local air ambulance helicopter this winter. This is worrying, as it has already conducted 200 emergency call outs since it came into service in the summer," he said.

"While I know that the public will continue to generously back their air ambulance, I sincerely hope that we will find further significant financial sponsorship to protect this lifesaving service."

Hot on the heels of Mr Öpik raising the issue in the House of Commons yesterday, Lisa Francis, Welsh Conservative AM for Mid &West Wales, has called on the Assembly to commit permanent funding for Wales' third air ambulance.

The Welshpool-based helicopter service was introduced in June as a temporary service for the summer months and was flying for five days a week. During that time it flew almost 200 missions, several of which were life-savers. The service is due to be lost at the end of November.

Meanwhile, in the Welsh Assembly yesterday Health Minister Dr Brian Gibbons said that only one in 10 people who called an emergency land ambulance actually needed to go to hospital.