By Isle of Wight Observer
To mark Emergency Services Day yesterday, Hovertravel revealed that its Island Rescue service has carried out 126 emergency stretcher transfers between the Isle of Wight and Portsmouth in the past year, averaging more than two missions each week.
The service, delivered with the IW NHS Trust and South Central Ambulance Service, uses Hovertravel’s hovercraft to transfer stretcher patients across the Solent in minutes. The rapid journey not only improves patient outcomes by allowing urgent treatment to begin without delay, but also enables paramedic teams to return to the Island more quickly than by any other method, ensuring emergency resources remain available.
The Island Rescue service has won several awards for innovation and teamwork, with its success based on close collaboration between Hovertravel crews, ambulance teams, NHS clinicians and other emergency services.
As part of Emergency Services Day, Hovertravel also paid tribute to the dedication of the Island’s paramedics, ambulance crews, NHS clinicians, coastguard teams, and fire and police services.
Loretta Lale, head of marketing at Hovertravel, said the company was proud to support the wider emergency services network: “Our crews train side by side with paramedics and emergency responders, and we are proud that our unique hovercraft capability plays such an important role in helping patients when time matters most.”
Isle of Wight Observer