North West Air Ambulance  The North West Air Ambulance is the helicopter emergency medical service that covers the North West England region, consisting of the counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Lancashire, Greater Manchester and Merseyside. The charity has existed since 1999. It was established with a single aircraft based at Blackpool Airport and has since upgraded to three Eurocopter EC135 aircraft one based at Blackpool Airport the other two at City Airport Manchester (Barton). The service uses three Eurocopter EC135 aircraft operated by Babcock Mission Critical Services Onshore, which have top speeds of over , and fly during daylight hours 365 days a year. The fleet aircraft can operate under instrument flight rules (IFR), so fly in all weather conditions, day and night. This is the same capability as the neighbouring Great North Air Ambulance Service whose fleet have larger aircraft unable to reach some sites used by the NWAA. Although the aircraft have their allocated counties, they will often cross into each other's areas should operational needs require it. In February 2018, a BMW X5 road vehicle was added to the fleet. This has been given the name "Air Ambulance Response Unit" (or 'RU' for short). It enables doctors and paramedics to carry out some of their work during the hours of darkness, poor weather or when an aircraft requires maintenance. The paramedics who provide the patient care for incidents attended by NWAA are provided on two year secondments by the North West Ambulance Service. The medics are extensively trained in areas such as helicopter safety, navigation and aviation law as well as advanced medical procedures beyond those performed by their land based colleagues. In addition to the paramedics, there is always a pre-hospital emergency medicine trained Doctor on one helicopter from Manchester Barton base. The pilots, along with the helicopters themselves are provided by outside contractor Babcock Mission Critical Services Onshore. Control of the aircraft was, until recently, the responsibility of the Emergency Medical Dispatchers working in local North West Ambulance Service control rooms. However, there is now a central Air Desk at Ambulance Control in Broughton, Preston which prioritises requests for the air ambulance in an attempt to increase efficiency.