Building a new home for Devon Air Ambulance

The new airbase will improve response times and the delivery of life-saving care across Devon.

Devon Air Ambulance are embarking on an exciting journey to build a new home. This new facility will enable them to continue responding to communities’ needs, adapt their services, and enhance their ability to provide lifesaving care. It will also support their world-class research and offer tailored post-incident care to our patients and their families.

This investment will strengthen their service, ensuring that they are always there for the people of Devon and the patients who rely on them.

For 35 years, they have proudly served nearly 35,000 patients in Devon and beyond. However, the current facilities are old and outdated and will soon no longer meet the service’s needs.

Devon’s population is projected to increase by 100,000 people over the next 15 years. Over the past decade, the demand for services has doubled, and they have reached the capacity of their current Exeter airbase.

To continue responding to their future patients and families in the best way they can, they must expand and enhance the facilities.

A new airbase will give them:

• A larger, retrofitted aircraft hangar for our newer aircraft, providing ample space for maintenance and operations.
• A purpose-built training facility for our emergency pre-hospital doctors and paramedics.
• Equipment and infrastructure to support 24/7 operations.
• Dedicated spaces for mission preparation and debriefing.
• Post-incident support areas for our patients and their families.
• Additional spaces for fundraising, training, and community engagement.
• Enhanced visitor areas to help us grow and respond to our communities’ needs.
• Well-being and rest facilities for our crew and clinicians.

The new base will also enhance efficiency by co-locating the charity’s operations and support staff, thereby reducing overhead costs and improving our environmental impact.

After five years of intensive searching and negotiation, they are excited to have found the perfect location for their new combined airbase and headquarters, which will be on land next to the current airbase at Exeter Airport. This adjacent land allows them to retrofit the current airbase and enhance the site with an access lane, car parking, external storage, and office facilities.

The site is centrally located in Devon, making it ideal for engaging with a large local community. It will be complemented by the North Devon Eaglescott airbase, which will remain operational as normal and allow us quick response times in northern areas of the county.

By bringing together the teams that deliver the time-critical patient care, and the teams that support these operations, raise the funds to deliver them; work with their volunteers and support their shops, they will be able to work more efficiently, and ultimately deliver an even better service. They know that, in responding to emergency callouts, every second matters and can make a crucial difference for people facing life-changing and life-threatening illnesses and injuries.

The design will streamline everything from swift access to aircraft and Critical Care Cars, to efficient restocking of medical supplies and disposing of clinical waste. It will be organised around how our crew prepares for, sets off on, and returns from a mission.

Having a central base will save time traveling between their airbase, external stores, and headquarters elsewhere for supplies, meetings, or staying connected as teams. Access to our airbase is via the international airport gate, which is subject to extensive security measures, so by having a new access road directly to the HQ and airbase, we can make great time savings in managing day-to-day tasks like deliveries and contractors, invite in more visitors and local community groups, and hold events that support fundraising and promote awareness of their vital service.

Building a new home for Devon Air Ambulance is their most ambitious mission yet; but they know how important it is to ensure they can continue to respond to the needs of  Devon's communities.

Developing a new, fit for purpose, combined airbase and headquarters is likely to cost in the region of £9m. Thanks to careful financial management, we’ve already set aside £4.5m to start this work, meaning that we will need to raise the remaining half.