1999 Expand DSAA was registered as a charity in December 1999 by a joint venture of trustees from Dorset and Somerset Ambulance Service. Seed funding was received from the Government and the Automobile Association. The airbase was established at Henstridge, near Sherborne. The charity operated from a broom cupboard in Taunton Ambulance Station with one fundraiser and one volunteer, eventually moving to a portacabin on this site.
2000 Expand The charity started a Society Lottery with an office in Bournemouth Ambulance Station Our first Flight for Life Lottery Draw took place on 19th December by Jeremy Beadle at the Bournemouth Pavillion Theatre. Our service came online at 8.00am on the 21st March 2000; 52 minutes later we were tasked to our first mission.
2000-2006 Expand During this time, we operated a twin-paramedic model of operation which was pretty much the standard of the time and changed very little for many years. The principle was to get to the patient as quickly as possible, carry out an immediate assessment, stabilise them and package them for transportation to hospital. Our crew consisted of two paramedics and a pilot and operated during daylight hours only. During the first three years of operation, our aircraft costs were met by the AA grant and our medical costs were met by the ambulance service.
2007 Expand The Bolkow 105 served us well for seven years, but in 2007 we decided to upgrade to a more modern aircraft, the EC135. HRH The Princess Royal, Princess Anne, formerly unveiled our new helicopter at a ceremony held at the Fleet Air Arm Museum, Yeovilton. SWASFT created a permanent Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) desk to cover the south west region. This was the first full-time HEMS desk in the country; today it is funded by the five air ambulance charities it serves.
2008 Expand Geoff Jarvis (owner of Henstridge Airfield) built a purpose-built air ambulance hangar and leased it to the charity for a peppercorn rent. The charity moved to new offices in Wellington.
2011 Expand In 2011, we began looking at ways to develop our critical care capability and increased our paramedics to six. Our Lottery office moved to leased offices in Wimborne and we organised our first ever Coast to Coast Cycle Challenge.
2013 Expand In 2013, we sponsored a unique, post-graduate education programme for eight paramedics. This was funded by the charity and run in partnership with the University of Hertfordshire, SWASFT and a number of NHS hospital trusts across the region.
2015 Expand During our 15th Anniversary year, we began operating a critical care model for 3.5 days a week. Our unique education programme received national recognition when we were awarded a Health Service Journal Award for ‘Improving Outcomes through Learning and Development’.
2016 Expand We made the transition to providing a full critical care service for seven days a week. Our team expanded to 10 paramedics and 14 doctors. DSAA announced a collaboration with Dorset County Hospital, Devon Freewheelers, SWASFT and the Henry Surtees Foundation, which resulted in patients being able to receive blood components at the scene of an incident. We officially opened a new clinical training facility, a day/night aviation planning facility, suitable technical storage space and improved crew rest facilities at our Henstridge airbase.
2017 Expand On 12th June, DSAA acquired a new AW169 helicopter, in a joint venture with new operator, Specialist Aviation Services, the firstto enter air ambulance operational service in the UK. We began night operations and extended our operational hours to 19 hours a day: 7.00am – 2.00am.
2018 Expand After holding a competition to find a name for our new aircraft, ‘Pegasus’ was unveiled at a ceremony which took place at Leonardo Helicopters in Yeovil. Our clinical team expanded to 14 practitioners and we recruited two part-time Patient and Family Liaison Nurses. The HEMS Desk extended their hours and staff to cover the longer shift in air ambulance operations. The charity purchased our head office building in Wellington.
2019 Expand DSAA approved a grant to the South Western Ambulance Service Charity, to support the training and equipping of volunteer community first responder groups within Dorset and Somerset. In April 2019, in addition to the critical care service we provide by helicopter and critical care car, our practitioners took to the road, in a bid to take outreach to a new level. This innovative additional DSAA service operates between the hours of 10.00am until 10.00pm.
2020 Expand 2020 marked 20 years since Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance was first launched. Our 20th anniversary year saw us provide an air and road-delivered critical care service 19 hours a day, 365 days a year. A national lockdown commenced due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We continued to provide pre-hospital critical care to the region. Our critical care team were operational every single day and night throughout the pandemic. All face-to-face fundraising and events were suspended and we relied on digital/virtual ways to raise funds.
2021 Expand The COVID-19 pandemic continued and provided its challenges. Despite this, we maintained complete reliability of our service and our team continued to work hard on each of our strategic clinical challenges. We provided a critical care service for 19 hours per day, every single day throughout the pandemic. Our clinical team produced a video about how they worked during the COVID-19 pandemic. You can watch it here - dsairambulance.org.uk/operations-throughout-covid-19-video Our team provided a COVID-19 critical care transfer service, to safely move patients from NHS hospitals with too many patients, to NHS hospitals with more bed capacity. After nearly a two-year break, our fantastic Coast to Coast Cycle Challenge returned in September and kicked off Air Ambulance Week. We were shortlisted as a finalist in five categories in the Air Ambulances UK Awards of Excellence. DSAA came out as winners in three categories; Doctor of the Year, Innovation of the Year, Lifetime Achievement Award and we were highly commended in the other two categories.
2022 Expand Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance launched a new initiative called ‘Blossoming and Blooming Open Gardens’, that aimed to bring together local communities, raise awareness and funds. DSAA were crowned winners in the ‘Charity of the Year’ category at the Somerset Business Awards. Bill Sivewright, our longstanding CEO retired and his successor, Charles Hackett, was appointed as our new CEO. Face-to-face fundraising recommenced and was in full swing during the summer event season! Despite the adverse weather conditions, our Coast to Coast Cycle Challenge went ahead and was a huge success raising £42,100. A new campaign called ‘Saving Lives Together’ was launched by SWASFT and supported by South West Air Ambulance charities including DSAA, with the aim of preventing deaths from cardiac arrests. DSAA launched a new fundraising event called The 5K Twilight Shift, a charity run and walk around Henstridge Airfield.
2024 Expand DSAA transitions from Specialist Aviation Services to Gama Aviation as its aircraft operator, marking a new chapter in aviation operations. Innovation advances with the development of machine learning research focused on accurate tasking of pre-hospital critical care teams. The first PhD student joins the team, contributing to research efforts. DSAA welcomes its third national Pre-Hospital Emergency Medicine (PHEM) trainee. The charity orders a second AW169 aircraft to enhance aviation capability. Regional research funding secured to investigate motorcycle injury prevention, reinforcing DSAA’s commitment to public health and safety.
2025 Expand DSAA celebrates 25 years of saving lives and a decade of operational excellence with a fully staffed critical care team on every shift. This milestone reflects DSAA’s dedication to ensuring critical care is always available for the people of Dorset and Somerset. DSAA secures National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) funding to research the use of machine learning in supporting rapid and accurate tasking of teams to critical care patients. The charity welcomes its fourth national Pre-Hospital Emergency Medicine (PHEM) trainee. A critical care practitioner is enabled to support ambulance service tasking within the central emergency operations centre.