In a medical emergency, dial 999 and ask for an ambulance. The ambulance service decides whether a patient travels by road, by air ambulance or by coastguard helicopter. You do not arrange an air transfer yourself.
The Wilson-Thomson Helipad
The helipad sits beside Mull and Iona Community Hospital at Craignure. It takes Scottish air ambulance aircraft and the larger HM Coastguard helicopters, at any hour of the day or night. Before it was built, a patient needing air transfer had to go by land ambulance to the Glenforsa airstrip, fifteen minutes away by road. The helipad means specialist treatment at a mainland A&E or major trauma centre can be reached inside the golden hour.
MICT owns the helipad on behalf of the communities of Mull and Iona, and carries the ongoing liability for keeping it operational 365 days a year. That means public liability insurance, daily checks, repairs to the painted concrete surface and the aviation lighting, and de-icing through the winter with specialist chemicals. A team of volunteers from Craignure carries out the daily checks.
TO CONFIRM: The ownership, insurance and daily-check arrangements above are taken from a page written around the 2020 opening. Confirm they still describe the position today before this goes live.
Access
TO CONFIRM: The old site says nothing about access. This page needs: how the site is reached on foot and by vehicle, whether it is fenced or gated, where relatives and ambulance crews should wait, where not to park, and what a member of the public should do if they arrive while an aircraft is on the ground or approaching. This is the most likely thing a reader will come to this page for, and it is the thing we cannot answer.
Lighting
The helipad has an aviation lighting system, which MICT maintains.
TO CONFIRM: No detail exists on the lighting. Needs: what type of system it is, whether it is always on or activated for an inbound aircraft, who activates it, and what happens if it fails. Do not publish a claim about night landings beyond the general statement that the site operates day and night until this is confirmed.
Air ambulance transfers
TO CONFIRM: There is no transfer contact anywhere on the old site. Confirm with the Scottish Ambulance Service and the community hospital who a clinician, a care home or a family should speak to about a planned or an emergency air transfer, and whether any of that is a public-facing number at all. If it is not public, this page should say so plainly rather than leave the reader searching.
Other landing sites
TO CONFIRM: This page is titled Helipads, plural, but the old site describes only the Wilson-Thomson Helipad. Confirm whether there are other recognised landing sites in Mull, Iona or the smaller islands, and what the current status of the Glenforsa airstrip is. Either list them or retitle the page.
How it was paid for
The full cost of £418,000 was met by the HELP Appeal, the only charity in the country dedicated to funding hospital helipads. The land was donated to the community by Andy and Naomi Knight, and the helipad was built by TSL Contractors. It is named after John Wilson and the late Dr Bill Thomson, both of whom spent years raising money for the hospital in the community. John Wilson opened it on Wednesday 29 July, at an event supported by the Scottish Ambulance Service, who sent Helimed 2 from Inverness.
TO CONFIRM: The old page gives the opening date as Wednesday 29 July with no year. Confirm the year before publishing.