While many of us are winding down for the festive period and looking forward to putting on our ‘out of office’ emails, there are many emergency services and care services that are going about their week as business as usual, working every day of the Christmas holidays to ensure the nation is kept safe, healthy and well looked after.
This includes our Yorkshire Air Ambulance crew, as our service is operational 365 days a year looking after five million people across the four million acres of Yorkshire.
Last year the crew treated sixteen patients in between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, including a cardiac arrest on Christmas Eve and a fall on Christmas day.
Speaking of what life is like at the base over Christmas, Acting Clinical Operations Manager Paul Holmes said: “The Christmas holidays is a busy time for many emergency services around the UK as people don’t stop being poorly just because it is Christmas. Because of the serious job we do, we often find that it is good for morale that we try to engage in in some festive activity during our downtime over the Christmas period.
We take it in turns to play our favourite Christmas tunes and if some of the crew have received an interesting or comical Christmas gift, they will bring it in to share with the team. We also try to contribute something towards a crew ‘Christmas dinner’ which is usually a buffet-style tea, but we always have to be mindful that as soon as the siren goes, it is business as usual and that job takes priority.”
A big thank you to all our crew working over the Christmas period and to all emergency services, carers, retail and hospitality workers also giving up their time this December to keep the nation running
