Work begins on new hospital helipad

The construction of the new helipad at Derriford Hospital has started, with the turf cutting ceremony taking place on Thursday 30 October.

The new landing facility will take approximately seven months to build and should be operational by May 2015, allowing a wider range of aircraft to land on site and being accessible 24 hours a day.

Nick Thomas, Director of Planning and Site Services, said: “Today is a really exciting day as we've just cut the turf on what's going to be a fantastic new facility for the hospital. Today we officially launch the building of the new helipad. It's been a while coming, probably 12 months in the planning and we've worked with some fantastic stakeholders to get us to this point.

“The new facility is a really key investment for the hospital. Not only is it going to allow us to land some of the bigger helicopters on site, but it's also going to allow us to support night time flying so the air ambulances will be able to land here 24-7.

“It's really important for the hospital as it reinforces our specialist role within the peninsula, both in terms of major trauma care but also getting very poorly medical patients to us quickly. It also supports our wider specialist role across Devon and Cornwall and further afield.

“It’s really exciting and we'd like to thank all of the stakeholders who have been involved: Devon Air Ambulance, Cornwall Air Ambulance, the college of St Mark and St Johns and Devon Diving Research Centre. Probably most importantly of all and in particular, a big thank you to the HELP charity, who have raised half of the money that’s going to pay to build this new facility.