London’s Air Ambulance was called to Tower Hamlets 82 times last year, new figures have revealed.
This was the same amount of visits by the charity, which delivers time-critical care to patients via helicopter or rapid response vehicle, as in 2017 - but changes elsewhere saw it jump from the sixth to the third busiest borough.
And half of the 2018 visits were within Poplar’s E14 postcode - with 24 patients making it the city’s joint fifth most attended postcode. Bow’s E3 postcode wasn’t far behind either, with 21 visits putting it into the top 10 busiest postodes.
The service, based at the Royal London Hospital, was called out to treat 1,656 patients across the capital and beyond in 2018.
Of these, 484 were to treat victims of stabbings and shootings, 469 for people involved in road traffic collision and 346 for people who had fallen from a height.
The busiest borough was Southwark, with 90 visits, while just 13 trips were made to Sutton.
Jonathan Jenkins, the charity’s CEO, said: “It is vital that London knows that should the worst happen, our medical team can be by their side within minutes, performing critical and often life-saving interventions.
“We hope that by releasing these statistics, people in London will be able to see the scale of our work across the capital, and the way we have helped in their community.”
The charity costs £10 million a year to run and survives mainly on donations.
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