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18 Wednesday January 30, 2013

The new chief executive for Lon-don’s only air ambulance wants it to fly around the clock and recruit more sponsors to raise money for a second helicopter.

Graham Hodgkin, 46, in-spects the skyline from its heli-pad on top of the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel as he sets out his vision for saving more lives. He was only appointed in December, but has a clear strategy.

As we meet, the helicopter is undergoing its annual main-tenance – leaving only fast re-sponse cars to send to London’s most serious accidents.

Response times are critical to saving lives within what med-ics call the ‘‘golden hour’’, im-mediately after an accident.

With average flights taking seven minutes compared with car journeys sometimes taking 50 minutes in heavy traffic, the difference a helicopter can make it evident.

Mr Hodgkin said: “Without wanting to scare the public the fact is there is only one helicop-ter and at other times we’re re-liant on the car getting through traffic. There is no doubt anoth-er helicopter will literally save lives.”

So far the charity has raised around a quarter of the £2m-£2.5m needed for a second heli-copter. The cost of running a helicopter is about £500,000 a year, including maintenance and fuel consumption.

Only around a quarter of the service is funded by NHS, which picks up the wage bill for doctors and paramedics, but the operation of the helicopter including maintenance, petrol,

pilots and fire crews oversee-ing the helipad is funded by the charity.

Mr Hodgkin, who was head-hunted for the role, comes with more than two decades of banking experience and as a former managing director with Deutsche Bank was heavily involved with its corporate so-cial responsibility initiatives.

Relocate After Richard Branson’s Vir-gin terminated its sponsorship, Graham’s strategy is to attract more than one major sponsor.

He is planning to relocate the charity’s office in Philpot Street, within the hospital cam-pus, into the City to be closer to potential corporate sponsors.

Mr Hodgkin said: “Whilst Vir-gin was hugely beneficial for us, the service is evolving. We want clients to be proud to carry our brand and the problem was people either thought we were funded by the NHS or that the rest was coming from Virgin or

Richard Branson because they had such strong branding. But that actually wasn’t the case and it put off other potential corporate sponsors.”

The helicopter is to be resprayed to look more like an emergency helicopter and less like an advertising board, he explained.

The charity’s 25th anniversa-ry next January also presents a marketing opportunity.

Mr Hodgkin said: “We’re committed to carrying four corporate logos on the helicop-ter tail for a period of time. And sponsors will be able carry our logo on their website. But we think we are the brand and that people should be proud to be associated with us and not the other way round.”

It is the service’s reputation as the world’s leading emergen-cy ambulance that led Mr Hodg-kin to give up the independent business consultancy he set up

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A patient is brought to Royal London Hospital Picture: Channel 5

Wednesday January 30, 2013 19

London’s Air Ambulance Facts

Its helicopter always carries a trauma doctor and paramedic.

£2million-£2.5m is needed for a sec-ond helicopter.

The cost of running a helicopter is around £500,000 a year.

The average emergency flight takes seven minutes.

Thirty-two per cent of missions are carried out by aircraft.

Sixty-eight per cent of missions are carried out by fast response cars.

The busiest postcodes for missions are E1, W1 and SE1.

At night the current helicopter is stored at Denham Airfield.

There are four trauma centres in London.

The Royal London is the only one with a helipad.

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two years ago. Mr Hodgkin said: “When I joined, someone on the medical side told me it’s the best job in the world. And for me it is my dream job. I’ve learned more in the past six weeks than ever before in my life.”

He admits to growing tired of the banking world and although he declines to reveal his salary, says he has taken more than a 50 per cent cut from the six- figure sum he was earning in

the City. Graham said: “I had an unbelievable privileged

career and without that ca-reer I would not here.

“As my career devel-oped I found myself

much more interested in the people side. I

ended up consult-ing in leadership

and did coach-ing, training developments. In the last 10 years I’ve very much been involved with

corporate social responsibility strat-

egies, supporting chari-ties, so I kind of feel I’ve already made that funda-mental cross over into the third sector.”

His immediate plans are to raise money for the second helicopter to be on standby when the other one is out of service or undergoing mainte-nance. But his long-term mission is to have two helicopters flying simul-taneously day and night. At present the helicop-ter only operates dur-ing daylight hours from around 8am to around 4pm in winter, and 8pm

in summer. Mr Hodgkin said: “Landing at night time is dif-ficult in terms of visibility and the complexity of landing at the site of an accident. We consider the city to be a hostile environment with buildings very close, telegraph poles and wires. There are issues around technology and safety, which have to be overcome but it is something we aspire to.”

The 7/7 terrorist attacks showed the difference their team can make. A conference attended by staff was scheduled on the day, enabling them to carry out 26 missions using the helicopter and rapid response cars to the bombings.

A second helicopter on stand-by could be mobilised quickly in a major incident. He said: “Because of the intensive train-ing doctors and paramedics go through we could mobilise them relatively quickly even if not on duty.”

Mr Hodgkin plans to set up a training academy that brings the expertise of their staff to other professionals within their sector and the community.

He said: “There is a lot of out-reach work we can do in schools around preventing the sort of incidents we attend, as a way to engage the younger generation.

“We see a lot of people getting knocked off their bicycles by a lorry or cars. I also think a lot of young people don’t under-stand how fatal and awful the impact of knife crime can be.”

Determined to raise the pro-file of the charity, he plans an abseiling challenge despite being a bit scared of heights.

He will also be doing the Lon-don to Brighton Cycle ride for the charity to set an example to other fundraisers.

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When I joined, someone on the medical side told me it’s the best job in the world. And for me it is my dream job

Graham Hodgkin, chief executive of

the London Air Ambulance

The new chief executive officer of London’s Air Ambulance Graham Hodgkin at the top of the

helipad in the Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel

Picture: Isablel Infantes

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