Great North Air Ambulance


The Great North Air Ambulance Service is a registered charity based in the United Kingdom. It operates a dedicated helicopter emergency service for the North of England with three aircraft, serving North Yorkshire, the North-East, Cumbria and Scottish borders.

Operations

GNAAS operates three helicopters from its two bases at Langwathby, Teesside International Airport and Newcastle International Airport. All three aircraft were introduced into service during 2010 and 2011 are owned by the charity, previous aircraft being leased. All three helicopters are Eurocopter AS365 Dauphin N2 models registered as: G-NHAA, G-NHAB and G-NHAC, and were built in 1991, 1991 and 1996 respectively.
The latter acts as a back-up helicopter, working from either of the two bases as and when required. G-NHAA is named Guardian of the North. G-NHAB is named Pride of Cumbria.
To mitigate the risk of flying older aircraft, in 2019 the charity bought a AS365 Dauphin N3, registration G-NHAD, which was built in 2015. It is planned to introduce this helicopter into service to replace one of the older models.
In hours of darkness, when the helicopters do not fly, North East Ambulance Service funds a Medical Emergency Response Incident Team, which is staffed by a doctor and paramedic team from GNAAS. The MERIT service extended in November 2018 to cover Thursday to Sunday Nights, which were previously covered on an on-call basis. The service uses Volvo XC90 vehicles.
In 2014/15, the organisation had operating costs of £4.6million and an income of £6.2million.

In the media

From 8 March 2018, the charity appeared on Channel 4's TV programme Emergency Helicopter Medics, which followed the crews responding and treating emergency patients. Other air ambulances that featured in the show include Thames Valley Air Ambulance and East Anglian Air Ambulance.