Thank You For PPE Donations

Thames Valley Air Ambulance is thanking business and individuals for the overwhelming response to our Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) appeal.

In total we received over 130 PPE donation offers. With it highly likely that our doctor and paramedic crew will need access to this PPE for the foreseeable future, we really cannot thank enough all those who were able to offer donations.

We are now fairly sure that the donations we have received will be enough to enable our crew to do their jobs right the way through the Coronavirus outbreak.

Individuals and companies from across our community and from many different sectors kindly offered donations, including those in construction, pharmaceutical, agricultural and education.

Businesses also responded very innovatively, with distilleries and even honey producers turning their hand towards making sanitiser for our crew and other frontline health and care workers.

We also received many lovely messages of support for our crew alongside donations of PPE. We are so grateful for these. They have done a huge amount to lift our spirits in these difficult times.

These donations have made it possible for our paramedics and doctors to continue to provide our pre-hospital critical care service, for those who are most seriously ill and injured, in these unprecedented circumstances.

We were called out to nearly a hundred incidents across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire in April alone. Patients would have gone without the support of our highly specialised paramedics and doctors had we not received these crucial pieces of equipment.

This PPE does not just mean that our crew are better protected, it also reduces the risks of transmission of the virus to the patients we are treating, as well as the families of crew, who they return home to after each shift.

Our crew has also been able to redeploy into hospitals, to work alongside our NHS colleagues, and to do so without adding additional pressure on the official PPE supplies.

The generosity and kindness that has been demonstrated has been truly awe-inspiring. Thank you once again.

With our PPE appeal now having come to a close, we do still need the support of our community more than ever. We have been able to move some of our spring and early summer fundraising events online, and we do encourage our supporters – whether individuals or as part of a business – to consider signing up to these or donating via our website.