Sussex air ambulance charity unveils five-year strategy to save more lives

Air Ambulance Charity Kent Surrey Sussex (KSS) has unveiled its five-year strategy ‘Working Together to Save More Lives’ – created to help take important steps towards realising its vision of an end to preventable loss of life from medical emergency.

Following the busiest year in its 32 year history in 2021, during which KSS responded to 3,051 incidents, 2022 is proving to be even busier. With demand at an all-time high, KSS has set out the plans to develop its core life-saving service, to build on its Research and Innovation Programme and to introduce new Patient and Family Aftercare and community-based initiatives. Through even closer collaboration with key partners including South East Coast Ambulance Service (SECAmb), the wider NHS, other charities and with the communities they serve, KSS is committed to reaching more patients, improving more outcomes and working together to save more lives. The strategy also enables KSS to evolve and extend its service, with the introduction of innovations and initiatives to save even more lives amongst the 4.8 million people who live in Kent, Surrey, and Sussex.

David Welch, CEO of KSS, said: “As one team, Team KSS, we will act decisively and collaboratively to achieve our ambitious plans for the future - reaching more patients, improving more outcomes and working together to save more lives. Collaboration and partnership are key to our success, especially with our colleagues in SECAmb, the wider NHS and the communities we serve. To realise our vision, we need our communities to come together to enable sustainable change so that together we can save more lives. Our future success is very much dependent on the dedication, expertise and passion within the wider KSS family who will all play a key role in the ongoing implementation and success of our strategy.

“It currently costs over £15.2m a year to operate our life-saving service, with 86 per cent of our total income raised through the incredible generosity of our supporters which ensures we can give every patient the best possible chance of survival and recovery. To enable our success we will increase awareness of our life saving work and inspire even more support from our communities. Together we can achieve great things.”

Dr Duncan Bootland, medical director for KSS, said: “To realise our vision of an end to preventable loss of life from medical emergency, we need to collaborate with like-minded organisations to deliver community based initiatives that prevent and respond to medical emergency. When those emergencies do occur, we need to deliver the best possible medicine and provide ongoing support and aftercare, giving our patients and their families the best chance of a better future.”

Barney Burgess, chair of KSS’s board of trustees and former patient, said: “Our five-year strategy has been created in collaboration with staff, volunteers, trustees, supporters and key stakeholders. We have focused on those areas where we can make the biggest difference to the care we provide and to our patient outcomes. Through examining the effectiveness of our service, thinking differently about how current problems could be solved, and ultimately looking at how we could further develop to deliver better patient outcomes, we have outlined our goals with related key projects that will drive our service forward.”

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