THE air ambulance trust that serves Maldon district has launched its first ever crowdfunding appeal to build a new state-of-the-art training suite - able to offer paramedics realistic simulated emergencies.

Essex & Herts Air Ambulance Trust (EHAAT) is now calling upon the people and businesses of the area to support the charity with the appeal to raise money to build the new state-of-the-art training simulation suite at the North Weald Airbase for the critical care team.

Dr Naomi Pritchard, one of EHAATs Pre-Hospital Care Consultants, explained: "We are asking the local community to help us raise money to build an intensive and realistic training environment for our critical care team.

"High-tech visual projections, sounds and smells will submerge our team in ultra-real training scenarios so they can practice advanced procedures on human-like medical mannequins, putting them under the same stress and pressure of a real-life incident.

"This could be a car crash by a busy road or an incident in a child's bedroom - this immersive training will help our team to train and prepare better for the various real-world scenarios they face every day."

EHAATs team works 24/7 and is called upon to help save lives around six times a day - every day.

The service aims to save lives and reduce and prevent disability and suffering from critical illness and injury by providing a first-class pre-hospital emergency medical service.

A spokesperson added: "Treating patients at the scene, away from immediate hospital support, they could be performing open-heart surgery on a road one minute and managing a blood transfusion mid-air the next.

"When work is this tough there is no substitute for training."

Naomi added: "This new training simulation suite at our North Weald Airbase will allow for the realistic simulation, debrief and critique of incident-based scenarios. This will enhance confidence, knowledge, team communication and performance at the scene of each mission.

"This new suite will also enable us to collaborate and share learning and experiences with partners across the emergency services and the NHS, opening the facility up for cross team simulations such as road traffic accidents and terrorist incidents.

"The long-term impact is that with your help our critical care team of pre-hospital care doctors and critical care paramedics will continue to perform increasingly complex medical procedures in unusual locations and scenarios.

"The result will be a stronger air ambulance for the people of Essex and Hertfordshire and the saving of more lives. In addition, our high-tech training environment will become a Centre of Excellence, setting training standards for wider medical and emergency service communities across Essex, Hertfordshire and beyond."

Natasha Robertson, Fundraising Manager, said: "Training is so vital to ensuring that our clinical teams continue to provide the life-saving work that they do.

"We are thrilled that with the support of Stephen Gale at the Thorpe Bay Rotary Club we have been able to set up this very special appeal and if you could donate, you would have the peace of mind that you have helped to better train our critical care team now and into the future."

To find out more and to support this appeal visit the crowdfunding page set up for the project using the link here.

For more information about EHAAT and its work visit the trust's website using the link here.