2025-03-31-accounts

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AIR AMBULANCE CHARITY KSSX,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Trustees. Annual Report and Financial Statements 2024/25 L* If

Administrative details

Registered Charity Name:

Air Ambulance Charity Kent Surrey Sussex

Registered Company Number: 2803242 Registered Charity Number: 1021367 Principal and Registered Office: Air Ambulance Building

Rochester City Airport Maidstone Road Chatham Kent ME5 9SD

Principal Bankers:

National Westminster Bank plc High Street Chatham, Kent, ME4 4DB

Auditors:

Crowe U.K. LLP Medway Bridge House, 1-8 Fairmeadow, Maidstone, Kent, ME14 1JP

Legal Advisors:

Brodies LLP 110 Queen Street, Glasgow G1 3BX

Investment managers:

Evelyn Partners 45 Gresham Street, London, EC2V 7BG

Investment managers:

Ruffer LLP 80 Victoria Street London SW1E 5JL

Contact us

Telephone:

01634 4719000

Email: Website:

hello@aakss.org.uk aakss.org.uk

Table of contents
Introduction from our Chair	Page 1
Welcome from our Chief Executive	Page 2
Our charitable objects and the KSS Way	Page 3
Our Strategic Report
Our activities for public benefit	Page 5
Our key performance and achievements	Page 8
(summary of progress towards our four goals)
Goal one: We deliver outstanding treatment and care	Page 10
Goal two: We make a difference	Page 17
Goal three: We generate and inspire support	Page 20
Goal four: We aspire for excellence in all we do	Page 26
Our structure, governance and management
Structure governance and management	Page 30
Board of Trustees	Page 32
Senior Leadership Team	Page 32
Our finances
Financial review	Page 34
Key risks and uncertainties	Page 40
Statement of Trustees’ Responsibilities	Page 42
Independent Auditor’s Report	Page 43
Our financial statement
Consolidated statement of financial activities	Page 48
Consolidated balance sheet	Page 49
Balance sheet	Page 50
Consolidated cashflow statement	Page 51
Notes to the financial statements	Page 52

Introduction from our Chair eee

Welcome to our Trustees’ Annual Report and Financial Statements 2024/25. I’m honoured to have become Chair on 6 February 2025, following in the footsteps of Barney Burgess whose extraordinary leadership has enabled KSS to deliver ever greater impact in our communities during his three years at the helm. I’m delighted Barney remains a Trustee and it’s my privilege to continue his outstanding work as we look to the future with hope and the possibility of all we can achieve together. I’d also like to thank two outgoing Trustees, Susan Appleby and Richard Lee, for their valuable contributions during their time with KSS.

Everything you read here about the vital work of our world-leading lifesaving charity has only been made possible by the dedication, professionalism, passion, expertise, kindness, generosity and commitment of every single member of Team KSS: staff, volunteers, Trustees, former patients and their families, bereaved families, our incredible supporters, partners and peers.

This year marked our 35th anniversary of saving lives. KSS only exists today because of the incredible vision and determination of our founder Kate Chivers. Kate remains a special member of Team KSS and we celebrated all she’s achieved by presenting her with our first Lifetime Achievement Award at our anniversary celebration in November. I’d like to thank Kate, and every member of Team KSS, for the role you play in ensuring we can be there for our communities when they need us most.

During 2024/25 we made 3,139 lifesaving missions across our region, bringing the hospital to the patient when every second counts. Providing lifesaving interventions at the scene of incidents, once only available in hospital, including general anaesthesia, blood transfusions and open-heart surgery. Fighting for the life of 1,801 patients, giving them the very best chance of survival and meaningful recovery.

Every mission made, patient treated, family supported, innovation developed, has been funded almost entirely through public support. Our total income for the year was £24.4m. Of this, £22.8m was raised from the incredible generosity of our supporters, plus NHS commissioning funds. £1.6m related to a one-off profit share on the settlement of our loan for our G-KSST helicopter.

This has enabled us to not only deliver on our purpose of saving lives and providing the best possible patient outcomes every day, but to continually strive towards our vision of an end to preventable loss of life from medical emergencies. This is a remarkable achievement, but we’ll never become complacent. In an increasingly challenging fundraising environment, and with rising operational costs, it’s imperative that we carefully manage our expenditure and invest in opportunities that maximise our public benefit.

I give my steadfast commitment to governance excellence, robust leadership, collaboration and compassionate world-leading treatment and care. Because, for our patients, receiving the right lifesaving interventions in the fastest time possible is critical to their survival. Thank you to everyone who has played their part over the past 12 months, and past 35 years. Together we’re saving even more lives.

baw Poca

Professor Andrew Rhodes

Welcome from our Chief Executive

I am extremely proud to lead Air Ambulance Charity Kent Surrey Sussex (KSS), a world-leading lifesaving charity and an inspirational organisation – one team with one purpose. However, even I couldn’t have foreseen a more extraordinary start to our year. Our biggest ever campaign. Buy it for Life, was launched in April 2024 in response to the sudden news that our aviation partner was entering administration.

Due to the passion and commitment of our team and supporters, we successfully turned this challenge into one of our greatest Ss; \ achievements. We acted quickly to secure a new contract which included a time-limited opportunity to purchase our second helicopter (G-KSST), helping to reduce our annual costs by £500k. We needed to raise the final £1m to make this happen which we did in just six weeks, with the campaign going on to reach an incredible £2m, which was all spent on the purchase and running of G-KSST.

This extraordinary campaign, and increases in other income streams, meant we raised £22.8m this year, compared with £20.4m last year, leaving KSS in a healthy financial position. We also benefitted from an additional £1.6m of income through a profit share associated with a historical strategic investment loan related to G-KSST.

We now own two of our three helicopters, providing us with a more secure financial future and enabling service developments so we can reach even more patients and save more lives. During 2024/25, operating 24/7, we responded to an average of nine incidents every day: 41% in Kent, 25% in Surrey, 17% in West Sussex, 14% in East Sussex, and 3% mutual aid to neighbouring air ambulance services. It cost us £57k a day to operate our service, an increase of 2% on last year.

Despite our financial resilience, with 91% of our income now coming from our communities (an increase from 88% last year), we continue to face external geo-political and economic challenges. Costs increased year on year while raising vital funds is more challenging and costly than ever. We continue to navigate these challenges as we move forward together, stronger and more resilient, aspiring for excellence in all we do.

Community engagement is vital to our strategy. Even with the most advanced pre-hospital emergency medicine brought to our patient’s side within minutes, our communities are critical in helping to save even more lives through action as well as fundraising. In 2024/25, we grew our support of Restart a Heart Day with our award-winning series of CPR and defibrillator training events equipping a further 80,000 people with these lifesaving skills. We also continued to develop our vital Patient and Family Aftercare Service, offering ongoing support to former patients and families including those who are bereaved.

We couldn’t achieve any of this without the expertise and commitment of every member of Team KSS and the amazing support of our communities. On behalf of every patient we treat and care for, and their families and loved ones, my sincere gratitude and thanks. Without you, we can’t keep flying. Without you, we can’t save lives.

David Welch

Our charitable objects To relieve sick and injured people bythe provision of specialised medicine and knowledge primarily, but not exclusively, through an aeromedical service, to improve the health and medical outcomes of the wider community primarily in South East England and surrounding areas, and nationally (or internationally) in times of need or distress. The KSS Way: Our strategic and cultural framework Our vision An end to preventable loss of lrfe from medical emergency Our purpose Saving lives and ensuring the best possible patient outcomes Our goals Goal 1 We deliver outstanding treatment and care +++ Goal 2 We make a difference Goal 3 We generate and inspire support Goal 4 We aspire for excellence in all we do Our values Caring Trusted Dedicated Innovative Collaborative Caring for people and putting people atthe heart of all we do Generating trust in everyone we engage with Dedicated to ensuring the best possible outcomes for our patients and communities Pushing the boundaries through research and innovation to better meetthe needs of our patients and expectations of OUT SUPPOrters Embracing collaboration and partriership to achiei'e the best for our patients

Our strategic report

Our activities for public benefit

Our patients and the wider communities we serve are always at the heart of everything we do. Treating and caring for our patients is the core of our Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) – more commonly known as an ‘air ambulance’ service – and where we expend the vast majority of our resources. Our core service, plus our other activities, such as our prevention, education and training work, are always thoughtfully planned to ensure the highest standards of public benefit.

The Trustees have complied with the duty under the Charities Act 2011 to have due regard to public benefit guidance published by the Charity Commission which can be illustrated as follows:

Under the list of descriptions of purposes in the Charities Act 2011, KSS falls under the description of the advancement of health and saving lives; a broad description which extends beyond treatment and provision of care to the provision of items or services and facilities to ease suffering or assist recovery of people or provide comfort for patients.

Providing a frontline HEMS – air ambulance service – for Kent, Surrey and Sussex

We are the local air ambulance charity for the five million people living in Kent, Surrey and Sussex, and the around 90 million transiting through the region each year. We were established in 1989 and remain the only frontline air ambulance service for the South East of England. We’re one of the largest and busiest air ambulance charities in the UK. We cover 3,500 square miles, including some of the country’s busiest road networks, most densely populated towns and cities, and extensive coastline and countryside. We operate 24/7, 365 days a year — ready to respond when we’re needed the most.

We work in close partnership with NHS South East Coast Ambulance Service Foundation Trust (SECAmb) providing vital advanced support to treat and care for the most critically injured and unwell patients as part of the 999 frontline emergency response services.

We have three state-of-the-art Leonardo AW169 air ambulance helicopters and four rapid response vehicles (RRVs) in our lifesaving fleet. We use our RRVs in support of our helicopters when, for example, we are unable to fly, such as in adverse weather conditions.

Our helicopters bring the hospital to the patient when literally every second counts for survival: when there isn’t enough time to get to the hospital.

Our highly skilled teams consist of a HEMS dispatcher who identifies where we’re needed the most out of thousands of 999 calls, highly skilled pilots to get us to scene as safely and quickly as possible, and an experienced emergency doctor and specialist critical care paramedic able to perform lifesaving medical interventions at scene that were once only available in hospital. This includes general anaesthetic, open heart surgery and blood transfusions. Interventions that only KSS can provide at scene with our specialist clinician team, drugs and equipment. Interventions that are the difference between life and death for many patients.

We then rapidly transport our patients to the best major hospital for the ongoing treatment of their specific injury or illness, which can often be some distance away. This is where our helicopters can again make a lifesaving difference with their speed, because time is everything for our patients.

Conducting world-leading research and innovation in pre-hospital emergency medicine

We’re world-leaders in pre-hospital emergency medicine research and innovation and have helped shape improvements in patient care for 35 years. We’ve been continually participating in clinical audit and service evaluation alongside exploring the frontiers of what’s possible in aviation and emergency medicine to increase survival rates from critical injury or illness across Kent, Surrey and Sussex. We also share our learnings widely across the UK and around the world.

Some of our major breakthroughs include becoming one of the first in the UK to fly with a doctor on board in 2005, further enhancing our own lifesaving service and also paving the way for many services across our HEMS community. Also, in 2013, we were the first HEMS charity to fly 24/7, 365 days a year, and led the way on the introduction of carrying blood on board.

We continue to publish research with more recent studies highlighting the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to support lifesaving decisions in trauma care and a pioneering new study revealing that using invasive arterial blood pressure monitoring in pre-hospital emergency medicine offers far greater precision in treating patients with brain injuries. We’ve also published papers showing that Pre-hospital Emergency Anaesthesia provided by HEMS crews is faster than transporting major trauma patients to hospital for anaesthesia, which can significantly affect patient outcomes.

Supporting former patients and their loved ones with our Patient and Family Aftercare Service

We support our former patients, their families, and bereaved families, long after their incident to ensure the best possible recovery journey by providing ongoing tailored support and coordinating existing support options. Our service offers the opportunity to visit us and meet with the crews who attended the incident to understand more about the medical emergency and the treatment and care provided. We know this can be an important part of processing what they’ve experienced.

Our service also includes beneficiary-led peer support group sessions enabling former patients, their families and bereaved families, who are connected through a lived experience, such as a cardiac arrest, to meet each other, share in their personal experiences and help and support each.

Providing education initiatives to help train lifesavers, both professionally and in our communities

Professional: Our KSS education programme ensures that our clinical crew remain at the forefront of pre-hospital emergency medicine on joining KSS and throughout their time with us, ensuring the best outcomes and meaningful recovery for our patients. We also create and deliver training for our partners and peers on specific interventions and operational procedures at scene.

Community: We want to save as many lives as we possibly can, but we can’t do that alone. We need the support of our communities. We’re passionate everyone should receive some training in the basic lifesaving skills of giving CPR and using a defibrillator to help improve survival rates for cardiac arrest patients. Bystanders can more than double the chance of survival of someone in cardiac arrest by starting CPR and using a defibrillator in those first crucial minutes before the emergency services arrive.

Delivering prevention campaigns to help keep people safe and prevent medical emergencies

We’re committed to helping keep our communities safe and prevent serious medical emergencies happening through raising awareness of issues such as road, motorcycle and cycling safety, burns and safe pursuit of hobbies such as equestrian activities. Alongside promoting our own initiatives, we also collaborate with peer organisations to help keep our communities safe such as Brake for Road Safety Week.

Offering meaningful and impactful volunteering opportunities within our communities

We offer a wide range of volunteering opportunities which have many public benefits such as enjoying social contact with a diverse group of people, learning new skills and enjoying new experiences, while also helping to support mental health and wellbeing. These include varied opportunities for volunteer roles at our offices, training in lifesaving skills, giving talks to community groups and schools, organising events, presentations and collections, as well as helping to raise awareness and funds in many other exciting ways.

what we work towards in everything that we do.

Our key performance and achievements

We undertook 3,139 lifesaving missions to the most suddenly critically injured or ill people across Kent, Surrey and Sussex.

We provided treatment and care to 1,801 patients – 1,211 patients during the day and 590 patients at night.

41% of missions were to patients in Kent, 25% Surrey, 17% West Sussex and 14% East Sussex, and 3% supporting neighbouring air ambulance services.

We raised a record £22.8m income from the generosity of our supporters, plus NHS commissioning funds. £9m of this was generated through our popular lotteries and raffles.

67% of patients had traumarelated injuries (such as road traffic collisions and falls. 31% were medical-related (including cardiac arrests and strokes) and 2% were either obstetric cases or inter-hospital transfers.

We supported 33 former patients and 19 bereaved families through our Patient and Family Aftercare Service.

We trained 80,000 people in how to provide CPR and use a defibrillator to help increase survival in cardiac arrest as part of Restart a Heart Day with KSS online and in-person events.

We raised the final £1m we needed to buy our second helicopter in just six weeks with our Buy it for Life campaign, which went on to raise an incredible £2m in total!

We held our international conference, Future Directions in HEMS, attracting over 160 delegates from across the UK and around the world united in improving patient outcomes.

We recruited over 100 patients to the Study of Whole Blood in Frontline Trauma trial looking at reducing deaths 24 hours after injury, in collaboration with NHS Blood and Transplant.

We hosted a UK-wide symposium focussed on optimising inclusivity in prehospital emergency medicine, aimed at ensuring patients benefit from the most skilled clinicians regardless of background or characteristics.

Over 100 volunteers helped raise awareness and funds, provide event and office support, gave over 200 talks, and many other valuable activities. Collectively they helped to raise over £91K from talks and collection boxes.

oal We deliver outstanding treatment and care "3FX

Our service

During 2024/25, we carried out 3,139 missions (2024: 3,382) and treated 1,801 patients (2024: 1,939). The slight drop in both mission numbers and patients are both within our expected normal annual fluctuations.

With need for our service remaining at around the record levels we have seen in recent years, we continue to make on average nine lifesaving missions a day. The below provides a detailed insight into our impact during this year.

Lifesaving missions to patients who suddenly become critically injured (trauma) continues to be the majority of the incidents we respond to accounting for 69% of total missions. Missions to patients experiencing sudden illness such as cardiac arrest or spontaneous bleed on the brain (medical) accounts for 29% and 2% were either obstetric cases or interhospital transfers.

Over the last ten years we have seen the proportions of patients we attend with medical pathologies has risen as the proportion with trauma pathologies has fallen, largely due to the improvements in road safety seen in the UK over this time.

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Missions by type of incident
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Trauma Sudden illness Obstetric and transfers
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We made 55% of missions in our helicopters and 41% in our Rapid Response Vehicles. 4% were made in KSS Paramedic Manager critical care cars.

Missions by air and and road

The incidents we responded to were spread right across our region: 41% in Kent, 25% in Surrey, 17% in West Sussex, 14% in East Sussex, and 3% mutual aid to neighbouring air ambulance services.

Missions by county

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Helicopter
Rapid response vehicle
Paramedic critical care car
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Despite a persistent fall in the number of road traffic incidents over the last 10 years, road traffic collisions remain our single most

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Kent Surrey
West Sussex East Sussex
Neighbouring counties
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frequent type of lifesaving mission, followed by accidental injury, such as falls and burns. Most of the medical emergencies we deal with involve people whose hearts have stopped (cardiac arrest) or who have just had their hearts restarted (after ROSC), followed by patients experiencing sudden neurological illness such as a bleed on the brain or stroke.

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Most frequent type of trauma
incidents
Road traffic collisions Accidental injury
Intentional self harm Assault
Sport/leisure injury Exposure
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Most frequent type of sudden
critical illness incidents
Cardiac arrest Neurological after (ROSC) Other
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The most common injuries and illnesses we treated were head injuries (27%), thoracic injuries (18%), sudden critical illness such as cardiac arrest or neurological emergencies (12%), and abdominal injuries (10%).

We continue to see need in our communities more skewed towards treating and caring for suddenly critically injured or ill males, accounting for 70.2% of patients, with female patients comprising 29.4% and other at 0.4%. This reflects the propensity for major trauma injuries to be seen in male rather than female patients.

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Most frequent types of injury
or illness
Head injury Thoracic Medical illness
Abdominal Other
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The three most frequent age groups of male patients are aged 20-29, 50-59 and 60-69. The three most frequent age group of female patients is aged 70-79, 30-39 and 20-29.

Male patients by age group

Female patients by age group

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Under 10 Aged 10-19 Aged 20-29
Aged 30-39 Aged 40-49 Aged 50-59
Aged 60-69 Aged 70-79 Aged over 80
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Weekends, closely followed by Thursday and Fridays, continue to be the days we’re needed the most.

Mid-morning into late afternoon and early evening are our most in demand times of the day.

After bringing lifesaving treatment and care to the scene, we then most often transported patients to Major Trauma Centres including Kings College Hospital in London 31%, St Georges Hospital in London 18%, Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton 22%, alongside other receiving hospitals across our region, helping to ensure the best possible onward care for patient needed.

We meticulously analyse, audit and evaluate our operational data to ensure we are always ready to respond with the very best possible treatment and care in the fastest time possible.

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Mission frequency by day
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
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Mission frequency by time of day

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25
20
15
10
5
0
7am-11am 11am-3pm 3pm-7pm 7pm-12am 12am-7am
7am-11am 11am-3pm 3pm-7pm 7pm-12am 12am-7am
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Three most frequent hospitals patients were taken to for onward care

King's College Hospital, London Royal Sussex County Hospital. Brighton St George's Hospital, London Other

Our clinical governance

Clinical governance is the foundation of everything we do. It provides the systems and structure needed to maintain and improve our quality of care, ensuring safety, accountability, and excellence. It spans a wide range of activities including training, clinical audit, quality improvement, patient involvement, and risk management in the context of clinical care.

This year, we’ve focused on strengthening the links between ongoing education and clinical audit. We’ve reviewed and refined our rolling training syllabus, aligned it to key skills and procedures, and started developing an integrated audit programme. This will produce the insight needed to drive future improvements.

Patient safety remains our key priority. Starting in 2023 and continuing into 2024, we implemented a new Patient Safety Incident Reporting Framework (PSIRF). Drawing on data from both internal and external sources, PSIRF allows us to target quality improvement programmes that proactively reduce risk and improve outcomes. This year, we completed the improvement programmes identified through PSIRF and operationalised the recommendations.

Our strong relationship with SECAmb continues to be central to our success. We’ve worked together on joint operating procedures, clinical innovation projects, and multi-agency training. At the heart of this collaboration is our shared clinical governance programme, which enables us to review complex cases as one unified system.

Developing our aviation capability

Our helicopters are critical to delivering our rapid critical care to scene and transporting patients onwards to the right hospital, which is often a major trauma centre some distance away. Thanks to the continued support of our communities, in May this year we completed the purchase of a second Leonardo AW169 helicopter. This investment reduces our long-term operating costs and secures the future of our aviation capability. The AW169’s

advanced features also unlock further service enhancements, including in-flight care and all-weather operations.

To protect these vital assets, we completed installation of Engine Air-intake Particle Separators (EAPS) on both owned aircraft. These systems prevent damage from dust, sand and salt, preserving engine performance and extending maintenance life.

We plan to have two of our three helicopters operational at any one time: one 24 hours a day, the other for 12 hours a day, and the third provides standby cover and cover for scheduled maintenance. Our ambition is to increase the second to 18 hours and we continue to progress towards this in developing our service.

Our AW169 helicopters include advanced autopilot systems capable of using the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) to fly by Point-in-space Navigation (PinS). This technology will enable our pilots to fly safely and accurately in poor weather, reducing reliance on visual navigation. Over the last year we’ve continued working closely with the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), supported by our aviation partner Gama, to progress the airspace design and approval process. If approved, we’ll soon begin

flight validation testing before moving to full operational implementation, an exciting step toward future resilience and our ability to reach more patients and save more lives.

In-flight treatment and care

The spacious interior of our AW169 aircraft allows us to deliver complex medical interventions in flight. After moving from simulation to full in-flight trials, we’ve finalised the necessary procedures and training. We are now ready to operationalise this enhanced capability in the latter half of 2025.

Developing our fleet

In addition to our three air ambulance helicopters and four Rapid Response Vehicles (RRVs), this year we introduced our KSS Paramedic Manager critical care cars, equipping some senior members of our Service Delivery Team to be able to swiftly respond to potentially serious medical emergencies in their local communities, when not on duty or working from one of our two bases.

Expanding our Patient and Family Aftercare Service

This year, 33 former patients experienced an initial visit to KSS to meet team members, and in many cases meet the crew members, who treated and cared for them. Some patients received further ongoing support to help them on their long journey to recovery and were supported through one-to-one contact and peer groups. 60 people joined 20 beneficiary-led peer support sessions, including groups for cardiac arrest survivors, bereaved families, farming trauma and more.

Due to the critical nature of our work, there can’t always be the outcome that we all hope for every time, but we know that providing support to bereaved families of patients we’ve treated can be of huge value and comfort in the grieving process. Over the past year we’ve supported 19 bereaved families.

We also worked hand-in-hand with the 11 members of our Young Ambassadors Team, aged between eight and 14, who all have a personal connection to KSS, whether directly as a former patient or as a family member. Supported by us, they offer beneficiary-led peer support to each other and help us to raise vital funds and awareness.

Improving survival rate from cardiac arrest in our communities

Every day around 25 people have an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest across Kent Surrey and Sussex. Currently only 1 in 10 people survive. We want more people to survive and so we’ve further grown our support of national Restart a Heart Day which takes place every October. This year we trained over

80,000 people in the lifesaving skills with our series of innovative online and in-person sessions aimed at children as young as 4 to the most elderly of 90+. Bystanders can more than double the chance of someone surviving a cardiac arrest by starting CPR and using a defibrillator in the first crucial minutes ahead of the emergency services arriving, so it’s vital that everyone learns how to be a lifeline.

Supporting development of a more inclusive pre-hospital emergency medicine workforce

In June 2024 we spearheaded and organised a national symposium, Optimising Inclusivity in Prehospital Emergency Medicine, focussing on issues relating specifically to maternity and paternity. The event brought together people from across the national sector to discuss gender-related system barriers to inclusivity in driving positive change. The themes and ideas emerging out of the Symposium are now being used to further inform and generate ongoing action plans around gender-based equity barriers in working within pre-hospital emergency medicine to help ensure patients benefit from the most skilled clinicians regardless of background or characteristics.

oa We make a difference KSS Paramedlc, Lalni Marshall and former patient, Davld Prlce

Over the past 12 months we’ve continued to strengthen our global reputation in pre-hospital emergency medicine, improving patient outcomes not just for the people we serve in Kent, Surrey and Sussex, but in sharing our learnings to make a wider impact across the UK and internationally. Our work has focused on major trauma, critical illness, out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and pioneering new treatments and technologies that could help save even more lives.

Published research

This year marked a significant milestone in our contribution to clinical literature. A landmark study published in t he Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine in December 2024 confirmed that Pre-Hospital Emergency Anaesthesia (PHEA) delivered by HEMS crews is faster than anaesthesia provided after hospital arrival, with an average time difference of 20 minutes. This timecritical intervention is especially vital in cases of traumatic brain injury, where rapid airway protection and ventilation can directly affect survival and long-term neurological recovery. This year we performed more than 200 PHEA procedures. Among these were several cases involving stabbings or self-inflicted injuries with sharp objects — including complex penetrating neck injuries, which are particularly challenging to manage.

Another major step forward in this specific area was the publication of a new national algorithm for the pre-hospital management of penetrating neck injuries in The Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine in December 2024. This project, developed over three years by KSS and informed by a national panel of experts, produced 19 consensus statements to guide decisionmaking in these complex, high-risk cases. With limited existing national guidance, this research is expected to significantly improve consistency, care standards and patient outcomes across the UK.

Our Patient and Family Aftercare Service reached a key milestone with the publication of two peerreviewed academic papers in November 2024. The first, published in the BMC Health Services Research, showed that structured aftercare significantly reduces anxiety among HEMS clinicians when reconnecting with former patients. The second, published in the Journal of Patient Experience and coauthored by a KSS former patient, highlighted the positive impact of long-term support and peer connection during recovery. These findings are now informing best practice in post-incident care.

National and international collaboration

We launched a new KSS Research and Innovation registry to track live projects during the summer of 2024, to improve transparency and governance, and accelerate shared learning. The entire KSS team now has access to the registry, and we continue to make all our research outputs available on our website as part of our commitment to sharing learnings.

We also began trials in January 2025 into bringing blood analysis, currently only available in hospital, to the patient, and biomarkers to improve rapid clinical decision-making at the scene giving our teams faster, more accurate, information to inform lifesaving care.

We collaborated with NHS Blood and Transplant, the Ministry of Defence and Air Ambulances UK in recruiting 113 patients between September 2023 to September 2024 to the Study of Whole Blood in Frontline Trauma trial, looking at reducing deaths 24 hours after injury and need for large blood transfusions on arrival at hospital. We look forward to the findings towards the end of 2025.

Internationally, we collaborated with teams in Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands on advanced on specialist hospital-level interventions for cardiac arrest, helping to shape global standards for timecritical interventions in cardiac arrest and trauma. We estimate in total that over 100 KSS cardiac arrest

patients per year may in future benefit from advanced resuscitation techniques like pre-hospital Extracorporeal Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (ECPR).

Technology and data have remained at the forefront of our clinical development. We progressed with enhancing our VideoBadge system to enable secure live streaming for remote clinical support, ensuring that even the most complex patient presentations benefit from real-time expertise.

In June 2024, we re-launched our highly regarded KSS international conference, ‘Future Directions in HEMS’. Our third conference of this kind, following a hiatus after the COVID-19 pandemic, brought together more than 160 leading clinicians, researchers, and partners from across the UK and Europe in emergency medicine and aviation. The event facilitated global knowledge exchange in the areas of fatigue management, crew wellbeing, cutting-edge technologies, and the future of endovascular care.

Renowned experts from across the pre-hospital community took to the stage, including Professor Mark Wilson, Professor Kevin Fong, and clinical leads representing HEMS services in Denmark, the Netherlands and London. The conference established a key working relationship with the Dutch HEMS service, and we’re now collaborating with them to establish a pre-hospital ECPR pilot feasibility study.

Drones and future delivery models

In August 2024, we became one of the first UK organisations to join the UK Civil Aviation Authority’s ‘Innovation Sandbox’ to explore the use of drones in pre-hospital care. Backed by a £200k National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) grant — including £20k awarded directly to KSS — and with support from the University of Surrey, we are piloting the delivery of defibrillators by drone to cardiac arrest patients. This development could dramatically reduce response times and save more lives in hardto-reach locations. Over 2,700 resuscitation attempts are made across Kent, Surrey and Sussex every year, with automated external defibrillators (AEDs) used in less than 5% of these cases. Using drones to deliver defibrillators could significantly improve this rate.

Goal 3. We generate and inspire support I f'TII APWI gi *$

How we raise funds

We generate and inspire support — both financial and non-financial — thanks to the tireless work of everyone in Team KSS and the generosity of over 100,000 people across Kent, Surrey and Sussex who give their support to help deliver our core lifesaving service 24/7, 365 days a year. Our supporters are also the driving force behind our ability to grow, innovate, develop, and sustain our service, as we focus on reaching more patients and saving even more lives into the future.

We continued to widen our reach and engagement and grow resilient income streams to ensure the financial stability and sustainability of our vital lifesaving service in an increasingly challenging fundraising environment.

Despite supporters continuing to face a difficult economic climate, creating a very challenging fundraising environment, the extraordinary generosity of people within our communities, plus NHS Commissioning funds, has raised a record £22.8m this year (2023/24: £20.4m), accounting for 91% of our income (2023/24: 88%).

In addition, this year, we benefitted from one-off profit share on the settlement of our loan for our G- KSST helicopter of £1.6m. This brought our total income to £24.4m.

The following provides a more detailed breakdown.

----- Start of picture text -----
Total income
Lotteries and raffles
Legacies
Individual giving campaigns
Community
Philanthropy
Corporate partners
Challenges
Events
Charitable activities
Investment income
Loan crystalisation
----- End of picture text -----

Raising funds

Overall, income from our lotteries and raffles, and other commercial activities, managed by our trading subsidiary, Air Ambulance Promotions Ltd, remained stable year on year, raising £9.1m (2023/24: £9.0M), with £8.7m (96%) coming from our lotteries (2024: 96%).

Although it has been increasingly difficult to recruit new lottery players through our face-to-face fundraising activity this year, which is the primary route through which we recruit new players, we’ve worked collaboratively with Tower Lotteries Ltd to introduce new tactics to increase the impact of their activity and during January to March 2025 we started to see a positive impact on new player recruitment.

Our lottery canvassers were all engaged through Tower Lotteries Ltd but received a KSS induction giving an overview of our work and detailing our expectations on conduct when fundraising on our

behalf, in line with the Code of Fundraising Practice. We carry out spot checks, such as mystery shopper activity and welcome calls to ensure our high standards are met, as well as closely monitoring any feedback received.

We continue to adapt our administrative processes to ensure our gambling activities remain compliant with any changes in Gambling Commission regulations as a result of the outcome of the consultations related to the governments white paper on reform of gambling regulation.

We also contract a further third-party supplier, Purity Fundraising, to assist with phone calls to our supporters, letting them know about further campaigns or other opportunities to support us. We have access to all calls made and KSS staff, at least weekly, will spot check calls for quality of call-handling and to ensure our tone of voice is respected.

All call handlers are trained in recognising when a caller may be vulnerable, and there are proven processes in place to deal with these scenarios. We believe a person’s data is a footprint of that person and is to be handled with as much care and attention as we would that person. We ensure that our supporters are aware of their rights over how their data is used and are respectful of their choices.

We’ve seen specific growth in the income received from legacies, increasing to £5.4m (2024: £4.6m). We’re honoured to be remembered by our supporters in this way and recently recruited our first staff member dedicated to this important area of our fundraising into the future.

We also experienced particular growth in our Individual Giving income this year generating £2.7m (2023/24: £1.4m). Much of this growth is attributable to our largest ever fundraising campaign - Buy it for Life.

The campaign was launched in response to one of the most unexpected challenges we’ve ever faced – the sudden news that our long-term aviation partner was entering administration. Thankfully we were able to quickly secure a new aviation partner, but this would come at an increased cost. So, we negotiated a rare – but time-limited – opportunity to purchase our second air ambulance helicopter, G- KSST, enabling us to reduce our leasing costs by £500k a year. This bold step would help secure our financial future and allow us to invest funds into developing our service so we could reach even more patients and save more lives.

We had to act fast. After existing interest in the aircraft was taken into account, alongside £3.4m prudently held in a designated helicopter fund, we needed to raise the final £1m to be able to purchase KSST. The response from our communities was extraordinary, with our supporters raising the £1m we needed to purchase our second air ambulance helicopter in just six weeks and going on to raise a total of £2m, with every extra penny supporting the future operation of the helicopter. We were also overwhelmed by the emotional support, with over 1,000 messages left by donors, many new former patients coming forward to share their stories, and 6,000 new supporters joining our journey.

We ran an exciting school’s competition to name our two helicopters with G-KSST becoming Hope (chosen by Tunstall Church of England Primary School) and G-KSSC becoming Spirit (chosen by Monkton Church of England Primary School).

Community fundraising has been another area of growth with more community groups, schools and organisations across the region supporting us. This includes South East Lions, Rotary Clubs, and Girlguiding London and South East England, as well as many schools, increasing income in this area to over a million for the very first time, raising £1.4m (2024: £0.9m).

We’ve also seen an increase in people within our communities taking on running events and challenges to raise funds, growing to £0.4m (2024: £0.3m) and from corporate partnerships including Gatwick Airport and Shepherd Neame increasing funds raised to £0.4m (2024: £0.3m)

Our successful series of events — including our popular Heli Hikes and Fun Days, Golf Day, KSS Ride and Christmas Carol Concerts — helped boost awareness, welcome new supporters, and raise £0.1m. While this is lower than last year’s total (2024: £0.3m), this reflects the planned pause of our biennial Winter Ball, which returns in November 2025.

36 major donors kindly gave gifts ranging from £2.5k to £200k, raising a total of £1.3m (2024: £1.6m). These contributions supported both core costs and key priorities across innovation, education, and research. Trusts and Foundations also played a vital role, with 94 organisations providing support during the year, including 17 new funders, with many also supporting both our core lifesaving service and specific designated projects.

We’re delighted to have welcomed over 26,000 new supporters to KSS during the year. They join the already over 123,000 people supporting us across Kent, Surrey and Sussex – keeping us flying and saving lives every day.

Increasing awareness

This year, we’ve continued to see significant growth in our media and marketing reach, engagement, and digital community, helping us to increase awareness, connect with more people, inspire greater action and welcome many new supporters across Kent, Surrey and Sussex.

We generated nearly 3,000 pieces of media coverage across print, broadcast and online outlets, sharing our lifesaving work, from milestones and anniversaries to research and innovation, patient stories, new campaigns and appeals, community and education events and activities – achieving a media reach of over one billion people.

One of the highlights was our world-exclusive BBC Radio 4 ‘Air Ambulance’ documentary following KSS to the frontline of saving lives. The one-hour documentary, which enjoyed three broadcasts, takes listeners closer than ever before to our vital lifesaving work as we respond to incidents and helped boost awareness in an extraordinarily powerful and compelling way.

Our social media community now includes nearly 80,000 followers – an increase of nearly 2,000 during the year – and our content reached more than 32 million people. Our website also saw strong performance, with over 104,000 unique users and 442,000 page views across the year. This digital growing engagement reflects a deepening connection with our cause and more people being inspired to support our lifesaving work online.

This is an incredible achievement and one that every member of Team KSS has played an important part in achieving, as we successfully continue to widen reach and engagement and grow diverse resilient income.

Our fundraising promise

We are proud to be registered with the Fundraising Regulator and display this badge on our fundraising materials. We are committed to The Fundraising Promise, which encompasses everything we do. This means:

We will commit to high standards

We will adhere to the Fundraising Code of Practice. We monitor professional fundraisers, volunteers and third parties working with us to raise funds, to ensure that they comply with the Code of Fundraising Practice, the law and with this Promise.

We will be clear, honest and open

In line with our values, we will always be transparent about how we use our donations, including the amount we spend on fundraising, and not exaggerate with you. We are always clear about how you can update how you support us and will always be transparent about any third parties we use to fundraise on our behalf. This year we maintained the support of Purity Fundraising and Tower Lotteries Ltd. We support the induction process of any new representatives into these companies through a KSS induction, explaining our work and the standards we expect to see.

We will ensure our complaints process is clear and easily accessible on our website. We will provide clear and evidenced-based reasons for our decisions.

We will be respectful

We will respect your rights and privacy. Where the law requires, we will seek your consent to contact you about fundraising and will always offer you the right to change how we contact you. We work with the Telephone, Mail and Fundraising Preference Services to ensure we honour our supporters’ wishes.

We will not put undue pressure on you to make a gift. If you do not want to give or wish to cease giving, we will respect your decision and we have careful procedures in place for recognising and dealing with people in vulnerable circumstances, available on request.

We will be fair and reasonable

We will treat donors and the public fairly, showing sensitivity and adapting our approach depending on your needs. We will take care not to use any images or words that intentionally cause distress or anxiety and will take care not to cause nuisance or disruption to the public.

We will be accountable and responsible

We will manage our resources responsibly and consider the impact of our fundraising on our donors, supporters and the wider public.

Our complaints process is transparently displayed on our website, and we will welcome and listen to feedback, responding appropriately to compliments and criticism we receive. We monitor, record and report the number of complaints and compliments we receive each year, both to our Income Generation, Marketing and Communications (IGMC) committee and in our annual report.

Our complaints procedure will let you know how to contact the Fundraising Regulator in the event that you feel our response is unsatisfactory. Any data on feedback will be shared with the Fundraising Regulator on request.

Strategy, governance and oversight

To ensure we remain compliant against the high standards we set ourselves, we have established an IGMC Committee, comprising of three Trustees, the Chief Executive and members of the SLT responsible for income generation, marketing communications and finance.

The role of this committee includes reviewing reports on performance against metrics and scrutinising of the quarterly complaints and compliments reports. Following an annual business plan, it also reviews key policies and processes to ensure adherence to our Fundraising Promise, offering support and guidance as needed.

On an annual basis, the committee will also recommend a final strategic plan and budget to the Board. Our strategy and focus remain on building a resilient and diverse income portfolio, not to be overly reliant on our successful lottery and legacies, and to continue to inspire those around us to support our fundraising efforts by raising our profile and strengthening our identity so more people are aware of our charity status and how they can support us.

Managing complaints

As part of our cycle of continuous improvement, we encourage feedback from our patients and their families, and bereaved families, as well as our supporters and volunteers whenever appropriate. Whilst we are proud of the way in which we treat and engage with everyone, we acknowledge that there may be times when we fail to meet our own high standards. When this does occur, our priority is to ensure that we deal with the situation as quickly and effectively as possible and not to be dismissive of anyone airing a concern. We can then look to learn from any experiences and put measures in place to prevent recurrence. Communication is key to our procedure, ensuring the individual is kept informed of any outcomes.

We’re thankful to anyone who takes the time to reach out and help us improve and have used both complaints and compliments to shape the communications we send.

We received 1,411 compliments and 361 complaints relating to the nearly four million individual fundraising communications sent during the year. While this represents an increase in the number of complaints compared to last year (261), the overall complaint rate remains extremely low at just 0.009%, particularly in the context of a significant rise in communications — nearly doubling from two million, driven in part by our Buy it for Life campaign.

All complaints were fully investigated and resolved in line with our published Complaints Policy, which is based on the Fundraising Regulator’s Code of Fundraising Practice. We are registered with the Fundraising Regulator, and all staff and third parties working on our behalf are expected to meet these standards. There were no known breaches of the Code by the charity, its staff or representatives during this reporting period. (Please note, this figure does not include any aviation-related complaints, which are handled directly by our helicopter supplier).

Goal We aspire for excellence in all we do Volvo KM69 BYP

We aspire for excellence in every area of our service and in doing so we are able to deliver continuous improvement and organisational development to ensure we remain a well-led charity with a peoplecentred approach and that we all enjoy our inclusive values-led culture.

KSS is rated Outstanding by the Care Quality Commission in all five of its key lines of enquiry and remains recognised and respected as a world-leader in the provision of a lifesaving air ambulance service.

Our people

Our highly skilled, passionate and dedicated team includes advanced emergency medicine doctors, critical care paramedics, specialist HEMS dispatchers, HEMS pilots and operational support staff, and team members across fundraising, marketing communications, and corporate services as well as our Chief Executive’s office.

We’re committed to fair remuneration for members of Team KSS staff members to retain and attract the best possible people working for our service to lead, manage, support and deliver our service, enabling us to provide maximum public benefit within our communities.

Our staff remuneration remained above the Real Living Wage. We’re committed to ensuring that all staff are paid fairly and competitively. To maintain this commitment, we will assess the Real Living Wage as published by the Living Wage Foundation as part of each annual pay review and take account of it in any annual pay awards made. All salaries remain benchmarked by our HR Team to avoid unconscious bias. Our pay structures, pensions and other benefits are all approved by the Board of Trustees and are reviewed annually. A number of medical staff salaries are associated to the appropriate NHS pay scales to ensure competitive pay rates and gender equality in pay, although KSS retains full discretion with regards to annual pay application awards on all directly employed staff.

In September 2024, more than 70 staff attended our second annual Staff Conference, Growing Stronger Together, which provided a perfect opportunity for staff to reflect on how we can all work collaboratively for even greater patient benefit.

In December 2024, we conducted our annual KSS Staff Survey to measure and track staff opinions and experiences of working at KSS, and as part of our Care Quality Commission requirements. The survey indicated high levels of staff engagement. All agreed that they would be happy with the standard of care provided if a friend or relative needed treatment, and the survey highlighted the pride staff have working for KSS and the belief that care of patients is our top priority.

Our KSS Volunteers

We have the incredible support of over 100 KSS Volunteers, with 42 new volunteers joining this year. Whether with us since the beginning 35 years ago, or having recently joined, every volunteer is an essential part of Team KSS helping to provide vital support as part of our inclusive volunteering programme that provides maximum public benefit within our communities.

In June 2024, we held our first-ever Volunteers’ Thank You Celebration event, as part of national Volunteers’ Week. At the event our volunteers were recognised, celebrated and appreciated for their kindness and generosity and tireless efforts to raise awareness and funds for our lifesaving work. The event will become an annual occasion for us to celebrate our volunteers into the future.

Environmental, social, governance (ESG)

This year we’ve been making further improvements to our ESG that are not only enabling us to meet, but also exceed, standards in many areas by optimising systems, processes, procedures and frameworks to ensure excellence.

In the face of the ongoing growth in cybercrime, our IT infrastructure and data protection remain a top priority for us. In June 2024 we retained our Cyber Essential Plus certification for the second year running. This external accreditation is nationally recognised, and exceeds standard requirements and compliance, demonstrating our commitment to cyber security and ensuring we’re keeping our people and our supporter’s data safe online.

We continue to achieve outstanding reports in our Gambling Commission Technical Standards Audit. Alongside Cyber Essentials Plus Accreditation, this ensures we’re holding the highest standards to any personal data entrusted to us.

From December 2024 to January 2025, we undertook an internal review of the Charity Governance Code involving our Board of Trustees and SLT. The review determined KSS was continuing to adhere to the Code and going above and beyond in its measures in many areas in the delivery of governance excellence. We also prioritised inclusive self-reflection throughout the review process. Every voice mattered, with Trustees and SLT participating in one-to-one meetings, group discussions, surveys, and an internal audit against the Charity Governance Code. This inclusive approach reinforces our commitment to best practice and continuous improvement in governance.

We carried out a skills gap analysis of our Board of Trustees to ensure we continue to have the right expertise in place. This helped us identify upcoming retirements and areas where additional experience would strengthen our governance. As a result, we welcomed three new Trustees in the 2025/26 financial year, bringing valuable added expertise in finance, clinical care and marketing and communications.

Our Corporate Services and Research and Innovation Teams worked closely together during the year to lay the foundation for future years with an improved Research Framework. The framework ensures alignment with our strategic objectives and our high standards of data security and will underpin all research work undertaken from next year.

We adapted our risk reporting to provide enhanced insight and understanding of the multiple risks the organisation faces and to inform our cycle of continuous improvement.

We continue to drive towards being an ever more inclusive team and we’re actively taking this forward with our work around improving equity, diversity and inclusion at KSS. We remain passionate and committed to our Equality (Equity), Diversity and Inclusion Policy (EDI) and steadfast in our zero tolerance of bullying and harassment.

We champion wellbeing and have several systems in place to support our staff, including an Employee Assistance Scheme and access to the SECAmb Wellbeing Hub. Our staff-led Social and Wellbeing group is very active in organising a wide variety of events and activities, supporting staff in this meaningful way. In January 2025 we held our annual KSS Wellbeing Month – a month dedicated to highlighting the importance of mental health and wellbeing across all staff with a wide range of activities and informative and engaging sessions to promote and support mental health and wellbeing.

We have begun an Environmental Impact audit, engaging the services of a specialist organisation to enable us to benchmark our carbon emissions and develop a long-term plan. We will use the

information collated to ensure we can monitor and track our emissions and take positive action towards minimising our footprint.

Our plans for the future

As we look to next year and beyond, our top priority remains the safe delivery of our service with the highest quality of treatment and care. We will also continue to strive towards reaching even more patients and saving more lives. We’ll be achieving this through enhancements to our aviation capability such as operating with PiNS, allowing us to fly in more adverse weather conditions, and continuing our world-leading research and innovation to help improve patient outcomes, including implementing developments in in-flight care and further exploration of our ground-breaking work in Extracorporeal Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (ECPR).

We’ll be further supporting former patients, their families, and bereaved families, with the expansion of our Patient and Family Aftercare Service to include an Aftercare Nurse as well as growing our education and prevention work in our communities.

Continuing to widen our reach and engagement and grow resilient income streams will also be a top priority as we continue to ensure the financial stability and sustainability of our vital lifesaving service in an increasingly challenging fundraising environment. This will be led by a transformative Income Growth Strategy, being finalised in 2025 and launched in 2026.

We’re deeply passionate about building even more compassionate communities where people feel inspired to support their local air ambulance charity and empowered through our growing participation, prevention and education initiatives to help save more lives. This will build on our already remarkable achievements in the past two years of equipping over 100,000 people with lifesaving skills of giving CPR, and using a defibrillator, and we look forward to sharing more about our plans next year.

Structure. governance and management

Air Ambulance Charity Kent Surrey Sussex (KSS) is a charitable company; a charity registered in England and Wales, and a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales.

We are governed by our Articles of Association as last amended on 16 May 2025.

We have one wholly owned trading subsidiary, Air Ambulance Promotions Ltd (AAPL), the details of which are given in note 4 of the Financial Statements.

Our Board of Trustees hold quarterly Board meetings and an annual strategy day. Additional meetings may be called as the need arises. The Chief Executive and Senior Leadership Team (SLT) attend all our Board meetings.

A Scheme of Delegation is in place to identify matters reserved for the Board and those delegated to committees of the Board or to the SLT or other staff. This is regularly reviewed and updated as necessary. Day to day responsibility for running the charity is delegated to the Chief Executive and the SLT.

Our Trustees

Our Trustees, who are also directors of KSS under company law, are responsible for the strategic direction and policies of KSS. As part of their roles, they ensure our high governance standards are maintained.

Over the course of the year, 11 Trustees served on our Board. Together, they bring a diverse range of backgrounds, skills, expertise and experience to KSS from aviation and clinical, to fundraising and communications and finance, all helping to ensure governance excellence.

Trustee appointment

Our Trustees are elected to hold office for three terms of three years until they reach a maximum period of nine years. Every three years, they will retire their position, and the Board must be re-elected into post. Should it be in the charity’s best interest for a Trustee to serve beyond this term the Board may agree for them to do so.

We’re committed to a thorough and transparent recruitment process for our Trustees. Before undertaking any Trustee recruitment our Trustees complete a skills gap exercise which helps us identify the skills we require in our new Trustees. We widely advertise any positions and use an external recruitment agency where needed.

Each candidate submits a CV to the Chair and Chief Executive after which we carry out an informal interview to enable any candidates to get a deeper understanding of what is required and confirm their commitment to their application. A formal interview is then conducted, and the preferred candidate recommended to the Board for their formal approval, by a simple majority.

Due diligence is always carried out in advance to ensure the nominee is willing and eligible to stand as a Trustee. Once elected, all our Trustees have an induction that includes inhouse training on Trustee duties, meeting key members of SLT and a visit to both bases. They are given copies of recent minutes, management accounts, the most recent annual report and copies of the appropriate Charity Commission guidance.

Declaration of interests

Trustees have a legal obligation under both charity and company law to act in the best interests of KSS and must not put themselves in any position where their duties as a Trustee may conflict with any

personal interest they may have. As such, a register of Trustees’ interests is maintained, and any interests are declared routinely at the start of meetings. All Trustees give of their time freely and no Trustees received remuneration in the year. Details of Trustees’ expenses and related party transactions are disclosed in note 16.

Trustees who served during the year were as follows:

Prof A Rhodes, Chair of the Board of Trustees (appointed as Chair 6 February 2025) O00 T S N Oakes, Hon. Treasurer D H B Burgess, Trustee (resigned as Chair 6 February 2025) @ —s Ci M J Docherty, Vice Chair ls S E Appleby, Trustee (resigned 13 November 2024) ee N C Hall, Trustee Oe R R Lee, Trustee (resigned 13 November 2024) Ce D A J Morgan, Trustee QQ E B Styles, Trustee ss P D Stewart, Trustee Bo J B Redman, Trustee ee R J Garry, Trustee (appointed 16 May 2025) Oe Dr K I M Henderson, Trustee (appointed 16 May 2025) Qe P Reynolds, Trustee (appointed 16 May 2025) Bn

Our key management personnel

The management of KSS is undertaken by our Chief Executive, David Welch, and supported by a SLT who lead on strategic work in each of their directorates:

A D Welch, Chief Executive ee Dr D J Bootland, Executive Medical Director A L J Curtis MBE, Executive Director of Service Delivery Oe Dr J A Harkins, Executive Director of Business Development DO K R Heaton-Ralph, Executive Director of Fundraising and Philanthropy Do

I W Howick, Executive Director of Corporate Services

Prof R M Lyon MBE, Executive Director of Research and Innovation / Deputy Medical Director CO S D Russell, Executive Director of Individual Giving and Lotteries as ~~,~~

Our decision-making structure: Our committees

All Trustees are required to be members of at least one committee which meet quarterly, in advance of the Board meetings. Our committees are outlined in the table below alongside the Trustees who attend them. Each of our committees work to a Terms of Reference approved by the Board.

----- Start of picture text -----
Name Purpose Trustee Members
Audit, Risk, People To support the Board in executing its responsibilities T S N Oakes (Chair)
and Investment around risk management, internal controls, D H B Burgess
(ARPI) Committee renumeration and benefits, governance and P D Stewart
compliance, coordinating financial scrutiny and E B Styles
oversight of all KSS investments, budgets and R J Garry (appointed
financial performance. 16 May 2025)
In a Board meeting on the 16 May 2025, the title of
the committee was changed from Audit, Risk,
Remuneration and Investment Committee (ARRI) to
Audit, Risk, People and Investment Committee
(ARPI).
Clinical Governance To provide oversight for the Board and support the Prof A Rhodes (Chair
and Service Delivery Service Delivery Team in reviewing patient care, until 16 May 2025)
(CGSD) Committee service performance, developing and delivering N C Hall
strategic plans, research activity, including oversight
R R Lee (until 16 May)
of relevant budgets and making recommendations to
D A J Morgan
the Board.
Dr K I M Henderson
On 16 May 2025, Dr K I M Henderson replaced Prof
(appointed as Chair 16
A Rhodes as Chair of the Committee, with Prof A
May 2025)
Rhodes remaining as a member.
P Reynolds (appointed
16 May 2025)
Income Generation, To provide oversight to the Board in relation to the M J Docherty (Chair
Marketing and charity’s Income Generation, Marketing and until 16 May 2025)
Communication Communications strategies, campaigns and project S E Appleby (until 16
(IGMC) Committee delivery, including financial oversight of relevant May 2025)
budgets and supporter experience. J B Redman
(appointed as Chair 16
To support the teams in developing and delivering
May 2025)
strategies and shall making recommendations to the
P Reynolds (appointed
Board on its behalf.
16 May 2025)
On 16 May 2025, J B Redman replaced M J Docherty
as Chair of the Committee, with M J Docherty
remaining as a member.
Aviation Committee To provide direction and guidance to the Board and D A J Morgan (Chair)
(AC) –meeting SLT on the options available to KSS in relation to its Prof A Rhodes
quarterly from 16 aviation matters. D H B Burgess (until 16
May 2025
May 2025)
N C Hall
T S N Oakes
Air Ambulance The trading subsidiary of KSS, a wholly owned The following served
Promotions Ltd registered Company limited by shares in England as Directors during the
(AAPL) and Wales.
year:
D Mantz
A D Welch
S D Russell
T S N Oakes
----- End of picture text -----

raphic – full page picture. Title overlay: Financial review Year-End financial position

Our year-end financial position is set out in the group consolidated balance sheet on page 49 and the charity’s balance sheet on page 50.

The charity group remains in a healthy financial position overall with sufficient funds to mitigate external shocks. The purchase of G-KSST at the start of the year was funded by in part by the redemption of loans to Gama, the crystallisation of the profit share associated with that loan, realisation of quoted investments managed by our investment managers, the phenomenal response to the Buy It for Life campaign, and cash held.

We retain liquidity to meet the organisation’s day-to-day cyclical working capital needs.

The main movement in the balance sheet in the year is the purchase of G-KSST costing £7.4m, funded by the Buy It for Life campaign, the realisation of the loan with Gama and redemption of our investments. We incurred a further £0.2m on medical and flying equipment, a replacement RRV to maintain an up-todate RRV fleet, and computer equipment. Movements on fixed assets are detailed in note 7.

As part of the new services agreement with our aviation partner, Gama, we now pay quarterly upfront, resulting in an increased prepayment balance at the year end.

Trade creditors represent regular supplier balances, settled after the year end.

Income

Our principal funding sources are set out in detail in note 3.

Despite the increasingly difficult economic environment faced by our supporters, our income increased to £24.4m, of which £1.6m was a profit share payment on the G-KSST investment loan and £2.0m from the exceptional performance of our Buy It for Life campaign. We evaluate our ongoing income is £22.8m. This compares with an income of £20.7m in 2024, an overall increase of 18%, or 10% growth if considered like-for-like. The proportion of this income from our supporters is 91% like-for-like but reduces to 85% when we include the one-off profit share (2024: 88%).

Donations and legacies of £9.5m (2024: £7.7m) and income from the trading activities of our subsidiary Air Ambulance Promotions Limited (AAPL) of £9.1m (2024: £9.0m), predominantly from our well supported lottery, together represents 76% of our total income (2024: 81%).

Income from fundraising and events of £2.2m (2023: £1.6m) increased by 34% on last year’s performance, delivered by growth from the Community, Running and Challenge and Corporate teams.

Investment income increased to £1.7m due to the crystallisation of the profit share associated with the loan on G-KSST at the start of the year.

Expenditure

Total expenditure increased by 1.6% to £20.8m (2024: £20.4m) primarily due to the impact of wage inflation on staff salaries across the organisation.

----- Start of picture text -----
For every pound we spend, this is what
it goes on:
Direct charitable
expenditure
Service delivery and
research
Management and
administration
Supporting costs
Fundraising
Trading subsidiary
costs
Raising funds
----- End of picture text -----

Charitable expenditure increased by 1% to £15.2m (2024: £15.0m). This has been controlled in part by the benefit of owning G- KSSC and G-KSST which has reduced the cost of aviation services, alongside slightly lower than planned flying.
Costs have also been reduced by direct charitable expenditure on research and education decreasing by £0.1m to £0.6m (2024: £0.7m), much of which was supported by dedicated funding for specific initiatives, while clinical staffing costs increased by £0.2m to £3.4m (2024: £3.2m).
The cost of raising funds increased by £0.2m to £4.0m (2024: £3.8m) mainly due to additional staff costs needed to increase awareness and income.
The costs of trading fell by (£0.1m) to £1.6m (2024: £1.7m) as lottery sign-ups continue to moderate in the face of economic pressures faced by supporters. Lottery membership grew through the year by 1% (2024: grew by 2%) with 104,636 plays in the weekly regular draw at the end of March 2025 (2024: 103,558).

Air Ambulance Promotions Ltd (AAPL)

Our trading company's turnover has increased by 1% to £9.1m (2024: £9.0m). At the year end the main lottery plays increased by 1% to 104,636 with a further 58,732 plays entered in the weekly Superdraw (2024 year end: 60,276). The weekly draw known as 24/7 raises funds specifically for night flying and by the end of the year there were 4,604 member plays (2024: 4,893). Total sales from the three weekly draws and raffles amounted to £8.9m, (2024: £8.9m). At the same time the profit for the financial year increased by 4% or £0.2m to £7.2m (2024: £7.0m). Given the challenging circumstances APPL Directors are pleased with the performance in year as there was no significant contraction in the size of the lottery however they are looking at several strategies to continue to further improve results and the support for our parent charity over the coming years.

Total merchandise sales amounted to £51k (2024: £33k) reflecting improved growth in Christmas card and seasonal merchandise sales.

The directors have agreed to gift aid each year's taxable profit to KSS. This amounted to £7.5m (2024: £7.3m), including the remaining taxable profits of £1.2m at the year end.

Going Concern

Trustees have reviewed forecasts that have been sensitised to reflect various risks and uncertainties including the new contract with Gama, continuing inflationary pressures on our cost base and a sensible range of investment outcomes.

Trustees confirm that they consider the going concern basis to remain appropriate as the charitable company has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future. The risks continue to be mitigated by flexibility in our operating model, the ability to decelerate or stop strategic developments and our diverse income streams, from legacy cases in progress, the substantial

lottery and plans to maximise opportunities from fundraising events, trusts and foundations, and ad-hoc raffle campaigns, supported by our continued engagement within the community.

Reserves

Total reserves Unrestricted Restricted reserves reserves ~~=~~ Designated General funds funds ~~—~~ oa

Reserves Policy

Our Reserves Policy is reviewed annually by ARRI Committee and its proposals adopted by the Trustees.

In accordance with the Charity Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP), KSS holds two types of reserves:

Restricted Reserves – specific donations including for equipment and long-term capital development,
Unrestricted reserves, which are in turn made up of designated funds and general funds,
Designated funds - unrestricted funds which the Trustees may from time to time set up for specific purposes. These include:
the fixed asset fund (currently equal to the net book value of fixed assets owned by KSS) and
funds allocated to long term expenditure, for instance the future helicopters fund and the property fund.
General funds - unrestricted reserves to manage operational or cash flow needs and to provide contingency for shock events or patient opportunities.

The charity’s reserves policy is reviewed annually and measured monthly against the targets set.

Following the acquisition of our two operational helicopters, the charity holds substantial unencumbered assets. Trustees are conscious that these may need to be replaced around the turn of the decade and as such the charity currently seeks to build a designated reserve over time to match the expected replacement cycle so that we have all but £5m of replacement expenditure covered on the basis that we also have time and a demonstrable history of success in campaigning for the difference. Whilst not optimal, the option to defer replacement, mortgage, lease or purchase second hand aircraft is also available, if necessary, to protect funds.

Furthermore, the charity has established, and will grow over the next few years, the property reserve to cover any material repairs, changes or developments to its other material assets, its bases at Redhill and Rochester. Alternatively, this reserve could be utilised as primary funding for the building of any future base(s) should the need or opportunity arise.

With asset replacement plans considered, there is a balance to be struck between the opportunities to grow and develop the charity’s public benefit and prudence to protect its long-term sustainability from sudden external shocks. Given consideration to the diverse income streams and flexibility in expenditure Trustees target between 6 and 9 months of annual expenditure excluding depreciation in its general reserve fund. Whilst the charity retains some flexibility to reduce its expenditure quickly in a crisis, that would be a last resort given the short-term impact for patients in need of our vital service.

With general funds standing at £17.6m (2024: £17.9m), this represents 8.8 months of expenditure (2024: 9.2 months).

The current investment approach means all reserves remain in highly liquid instruments.

Liquidity Policy

KSS aims to ensure that we maintain adequate cash flow to meet our financial obligations, support ongoing operations, and respond to unexpected needs. Key Elements

Cash Reserves:
We will maintain a minimum level of cash reserves to cover immediate expenses, such as payroll, bills, and emergency situations.
These reserves will be held in easily accessible accounts.
Cash Investment Strategy:
While ensuring liquidity, we’ll invest surplus funds in low-risk, short-term instruments (e.g., money market funds, certificates of deposit).
Balancing liquidity needs with potential returns is essential.
Review Frequency:
Our liquidity policy is reviewed annually or as needed to adapt to changing circumstances.

Policy on General Funds

KSS has a complex portfolio which is to be considered when the reserves policy is reviewed and applied.

KSS is very largely reliant on fund raising and donations for its activities and its expenditure can vary depending on demand and activity. KSS holds reserves to mitigate these risks, plus other shocks and to build funds for future major expenditure such as renewing the helicopter fleet.

Total Reserves

The total funds held by the charity at 31 March 2025 was £38.5m (2024: £34.1m), of which £17.6m (2024: £17.9m) are designated general funds. A full analysis is shown at note 14.

Restricted Reserves

We retained a restricted funds balance of £0.5m (2023: £0.3m) A full analysis is shown at note 14.

Designated (unrestricted) Funds at Year-end

The Future Helicopters Fund stands at £1.5m (2024: £3.3m) following the purchase of G-KSST and the Trustees’ decision to allocate new funds at year end.
The Fixed Assets Fund presently stands at £17.9m (2024: £11.6m), representing the net book value of assets we utilise, including the recent purchase of G-KSST. This fund would not ordinarily be realised other than by the depreciation or disposal of the associated fixed assets.

The Property Relocation Fund retains a balance of £1m (2024: £1m), this reflects consideration to any further building development which may be required in future and acts as a mitigation to the short contractual notice period on our lease at Redhill of two years.

Risk-based Approach

KSS has a five-year budget forecast that is reviewed at least annually. Due to the lifesaving nature of the work of KSS, there is a low-risk approach taken with regards reserves, as closure of the service would be potentially catastrophic to the public we serve.

Consideration is given to the reliability of the income streams individually and over reliance on any particular income stream. KSS continues to diversify its income streams to reduce overall risk of failure due to external factors affecting one of these streams, for example, the lottery. External threats that are considered range from an economic downturn to the potential of a black swan event and severe shock. It is recognised that in the past five years, there have been two large shock events in the pandemic and resulting economic downturn, and the administration of our key supplier. In both cases, KSS remained resilient with strong going concern.

Investment Policy and performance

The ARRI Committee is charged with ensuring a suitable asset allocation strategy for the investment portfolio, taking professional advice where needed. We seek to keep sufficient cash and near cash to cover known short-term cash flow requirements and day to day working capital requirements.

Balances over the liquidity requirements may be invested longer-term in various Board approved vehicles including bank deposits, investment funds, loans and any other investments that the Board may from time to time deem to be appropriate e.g. government gilts. Our Trustees have considered their appetite with regard risk and accordingly our longer-term reserves should be invested to grow at least in line with inflation to mitigate inflationary risk.

We seek to obtain the best financial total return from our longer-term reserves with a medium degree of investment risk. The horizon for the longer-term investments is up to five years with consideration to ensure there remains some short-term access to funds to support cash flow requirements.

Investments are diversified, with the aim of avoiding over-exposure in any institution, although most of our bank deposits are currently held with a single UK national bank.

Our Ethical Investment Policy precludes investment in tobacco and avoids direct investment in companies that generate more than 10% of revenue from alcohol manufacture, armaments, gambling, pornography and pay day loans.

Investment performance

The Trustees consider it appropriate to hold reserves in a combination of cash, low risk investment funds (Ruffer – targeting to preserve capital and beat returns on cash deposits), and balanced risk investment funds (Evelyn Partners – targeting returns of CPI + 3%).

During the year KSS withdrew £3.3m of investments to fund the purchase of G-KSST. We subsequently made a deposit of £1.0m later in the year from excess working capital to support the investment portfolio.

At the year end, KSS had a £9.4m (2024: £9.1m) portfolio with Evelyn Partners which is managed based on a multi- asset portfolio strategy which aims to achieve a combination of capital growth and income

distributions over the long-term. Dividends are rolled over and there is no entry in these accounts, therefore, for investment income from this source.

Our Trustees monitored Evelyn Partners own total return as follows:

----- Start of picture text -----
Investment Performance Portfolio MSCI PIMFA CPI + 3%
Total Return Balanced Index
Since inception (May 2018) to 31st March 2025 48.1% 39.0% 58.0%
12 months to 31st March 2025 5.6% 4.6% 5.9%
----- End of picture text -----

At 31 March 2025, the Ruffer holding was valued at £7.1m (2024: £9.0m). The portfolio is invested entirely in one in-house fund with the aim of delivering positive returns regardless of how the financial markets perform and at a higher rate than would be achieved by depositing funds in cash.

Our Trustees monitored Ruffer’s own total return as follows:

----- Start of picture text -----
Investment Performance Portfolio FTSE All-Share Bank rate
index
Since inception (March 2019) to 31st March 2025 33.1% 42.6% 14.6%
12 months to 31st March 2025 (4.1%) 10.5% 4.9%
----- End of picture text -----

Investments may also be made as cash deposits with reputable banks and on terms between 30 days and one year, ensuring that funds are maturing on a regular basis should our short-term cashflow requirements need supplementing. We constantly monitor interest rates, which have resulted in interest received of £79,629 (2024: £77,608).

The total unrealised gain from all investments amounted to £0.8m (2024: gain of £0.2m).

On 8 February 2016, we entered into a secured loan agreement with SAS (Kent) Limited to lend 50% of the purchase price, £3.079m, for the new AW169 helicopter (G-KSST) at an interest rate of 4.771% over a 10-year term. As part of our agreement to purchase G-KSST on the 10 May 2024, the loan was repaid in full and the charge held by KSS over the helicopter was released as KSS took unencumbered ownership. Up to that date, interest of £0.01m (2024: full year £0.07m) was accrued and paid over.

Key risks and uncertainties

The most significant risks we faced in 2024/25

The single largest risk to our operation was the transition of services to Gama post our previous service provider entering administration at the end of Jan 2024. Post transition the service has generally bedded in well, though since August 2024 a national shortage of helicopter pilots has, at times, affected our service continuity. This issue has continued through to the year end and KSS and Gama are continuing to work hard on plans to ensure we return to a consistently full pilot roster.

Cost-of-living increases remained a risk, with the potential of a decrease in public support for fundraising. We mitigate this by diversifying our income streams as much as possible, thereby giving people different ways to support us, but also by increasing our efforts in Trust and Foundations and our major donor programmes and canvassing for regular giving. Our innovative and rapidly formed Buy it for Life campaign along with growth in legacy income helped us hit record income levels, but the underlying risk continues.

Our lottery and gaming funding stream remains the biggest single income stream for KSS and the consultation launched by the Gambling Commission gave rise to a real risk of society lotteries being

negatively impacted by tighter restrictions in the gambling industry, particularly with regards to how we can engage with our supporters over our lottery and gaming products. We are pleased with the initial outcomes from the consultation, which has recognised that society lotteries do not pose the same risk as other betting outlets and should be treated differently.

The most significant risks we face in the year ahead

Operational

We continue to manage the inherent risks associated with managing a HEMS based operation, in particular there remains an ongoing challenge for our aviation supplier to retain, recruit and train experienced HEMS pilots. We are working with them to support the application and recruitment processes. In addition, ensuring our rota is robust so that we always have the right teams on call continues to pose a challenge, reflecting the pressure on the wider healthcare system and NHS.

We continue to monitor long-term plans at both of our operating bases linked to potential future developments which may affect KSS operations beyond the upcoming year.

We hold all relevant insurances to mitigate, as far as practically possible, the potential of significant financial risk.

Helicopter ownership

An inevitable result of our move from helicopter leasing to ownership is the acquisition of the risks and rewards that accompany it, including the risk of unforeseen costs and the residual value risk inherent in owning a relatively new designation and low serial number and the investment of capital involved in those purchases. Foreign exchange movements will affect residual value but will be offset by the future cost of new aircraft.

We have leveraged expertise available to us through the Board of Trustees, internal and external professionals, our maintenance providers, Gama, and the experiences of other air ambulance charities to ensure we understand and mitigate those risks to the extent reasonably possible.

External economic shock

In an increasingly tumultuous global political arena and cost of living challenges at home, there is risk of impact on the economy, whilst we have been immune to impact during the last year, we’re seeing early signs of the competing demands from other charitable causes and ultimately both individual and corporate supporters feeling less able to support. This could reduce donations and limit some of our ambitions. We mitigate this through continuing to diversify our income streams, innovation in fundraising and ensuring our budget and long-term strategy has enough elasticity to navigate this kind of uncertainty, and if necessary, by drawing on our reserves. At the start of 2025 we initiated a review of future income growth to review existing practices and identify new opportunities with our new plan to be implemented from next year.

Cyber-protection

With UK companies and government agencies being targeted by cyber-criminals, we are not complacent about our cyber-security and will always recognise this as a significant risk. We continue to respond robustly, and mitigations include reaching our Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation in 2024, but we continue to carefully monitor, invest and respond to this ongoing threat and seek to ensure our technical hardware and internal policies remain current.

| Statement of Trustees’ responsibilities

Our Trustees are responsible for preparing the Annual Report and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and regulations.

Charity law requires the Trustees to prepare financial statements for each financial year in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (United Kingdom Accounting Standards and applicable law). The financial statements are required by law to give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charity and of the profit or loss of the charity for that period. In preparing these financial statements, the Trustees are required to:

Select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently.
Make judgements and estimates that are reasonable and prudent.
State whether applicable accounting standards have been followed, subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the financial statements.
Prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the charity will continue to operate.

The Trustees are responsible for keeping proper accounting records that disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the company and enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Companies Act 2006. They are also responsible for safeguarding assets of the charity and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

The Trustees are responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the corporate and financial information included on the charity’s website.

Disclosure of Information to Auditors

Insofar as each of the Trustees of the charity at the date of approval of this report is aware, there is no relevant audit information (information needed by the company’s auditors in connection with preparing the audit report) of which the company’s auditors are unaware and each Trustee has taken all of the steps that he/she should have taken as a Trustee in order to make himself/herself aware of any relevant audit information and to establish that the company’s auditors are aware of that information.

Signed

horn Yyae

A Rhodes

Chair of Trustees

This report, including the strategic report, was approved by the Board on 22 August 2025 and signed on its behalf.

INDEPENDENT AUDITOR’S REPORT

Opinion

We have audited the financial statements of Air Ambulance Charity Kent, Surrey Sussex (the 'Charitable Company') for the year ended 31 March 2025, which comprise group statement of comprehensive income (including income and expenditure account), consolidated and charity balance sheet, consolidated cash flow statement and the related notes, including a summary of significant accounting policies.

The financial reporting framework that has been applied in their preparation is applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards, including Financial Reporting Standard 102 ‘The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland' (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).

In our opinion the financial statements:

give a true and fair view of the state of the Group and Charitable Company's affairs as at 31 March 2025 and of its surplus for the year then ended;
have been properly prepared in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice; and
have been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006.

Basis for Opinion

We conducted our audit in accordance with International Standards on Auditing (UK) (ISAs (UK)) and applicable law. Our responsibilities under those standards are further described in the Auditor's responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements section of our report. We are independent of the Charitable Company in accordance with the ethical requirements that are relevant to our audit of the financial statements in the United Kingdom, including the Financial Reporting Council's Ethical Standard and we have fulfilled our other ethical responsibilities in accordance with these requirements. We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion.

Conclusions Relating to Going Concern

In auditing the financial statements, we have concluded that the Trustees' use of the going concern basis of accounting in the preparation of the financial statements is appropriate.

Based on the work we have performed, we have not identified any material uncertainties relating to events or conditions that, individually or collectively, may cast significant doubt on the Charitable Company's ability to continue as a going concern for a period of at least twelve months from when the financial statements are authorised for issue.

Our responsibilities and the responsibilities of the Trustees with respect to going concern are described in the relevant sections of this report.

Other information

The other information comprises the information included in the Annual Report other than the financial statements and our auditor's report thereon. The Trustees are responsible for the other information contained within the Annual Report. Our opinion on the financial statements does not cover the other information and, except to the extent otherwise explicitly stated in our report, we do not express any form of assurance conclusion thereon. Our responsibility is to read the other information and, in doing so, consider whether the other information is materially inconsistent with the financial statements, or our knowledge obtained in the course of the audit, or otherwise appears to be materially misstated. If we identify such material inconsistencies or apparent material misstatements, we are required to determine whether this gives rise to a material misstatement in the financial statements themselves. If, based on the work we have performed, we conclude that there is a material misstatement of this other information, we are required to report that fact.

We have nothing to report in this regard.

Opinions on other matters prescribed by the Companies Act 2006

In our opinion, based on the work undertaken in the course of the audit:

the information given in the Trustees' report for the financial year for which the financial statements are prepared is consistent with the financial statements; and
the Trustees’ report has been prepared in accordance with applicable legal requirements.

Matters on which we are required to report by exception

In the light of the knowledge and understanding of the Charitable Company and its environment obtained in the course of the audit, we have not identified material misstatements in the Trustees’ report.

We have nothing to report in respect of the following matters in relation to which the Companies Act 2006 requires us to report to you if, in our opinion:

The parent company has not kept adequate accounting records; or
the parent company’s financial statements are not in agreement with the accounting records and returns; or
certain disclosures of directors' remuneration specified by law are not made; or
we have not received all the information and explanations we require for our audit.

Responsibilities of Trustees

As explained more fully in the Trustees’ responsibilities statement set out on page 44, the Trustees are responsible for the preparation of the financial statements and for being satisfied that they give a true and fair view, and for such internal control as the Trustees determine is necessary to enable the preparation of financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error.

In preparing the financial statements, the Trustees are responsible for assessing the Charitable Company's ability to continue as a going concern, disclosing, as applicable, matters related to going concern and using the going concern basis of accounting unless the Trustees either intend to liquidate the Charitable Company or to cease operations, or have no realistic alternative but to do so.

Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements

Our objectives are to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements as a whole are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, and to issue an auditor's report that includes our opinion. Reasonable assurance is a high level of assurance but is not a guarantee that an audit conducted in accordance with ISAs (UK) will always detect a material misstatement when it exists.

Misstatements can arise from fraud or error and are considered material if, individually or in the aggregate, they could reasonably be expected to influence the economic decisions of users taken on the basis of these financial statements.

Irregularities, including fraud, are instances of non-compliance with laws and regulations. We design procedures in line with our responsibilities, outlined above, to detect material misstatements in respect of irregularities, including fraud. The extent to which our procedures are capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud is detailed below:

We obtained an understanding of the legal and regulatory frameworks within which the company operates, focusing on those laws and regulations that have a direct effect on the determination of material amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. The laws and regulations we considered in this context were the Companies Act 2006, Charity SORP (FRS102) and tax regulations.

We identified the greatest risk of material impact on the financial statements from irregularities, including fraud, to be the override of controls by management. Our audit procedures to respond to these risks included:

enquiry of management about the company’s policies, procedures and related controls regarding compliance with laws and regulations and if there are any known instances of non-compliance
examining supporting documents for all material balances, transactions and disclosures
review of the board meeting minutes
enquiry of management and review and inspection of relevant correspondence with any legal firms
evaluation of the selection and application of accounting policies related to subjective measurements and complex transactions
testing the appropriateness of a sample of significant journal entries recorded in the general ledger and other adjustments made in the preparation of the financial statements, and review of accounting estimates for biases.

Owing to the inherent limitations of an audit, there is an unavoidable risk that we may not have detected some material misstatements in the financial statements, even though we have properly planned and performed our audit in accordance with auditing standards. We are not responsible for preventing noncompliance and cannot be expected to detect non-compliance with all laws and regulations.

A further description of our responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements is located on the Financial Reporting Council’s website www.frc.org.uk/ auditors’ responsibilities. This description forms part of our auditor’s report.

Use of our report

This report is made solely to the Charitable Company’s shareholders, as a body, in accordance with Chapter 3 of Part 16 of the Companies Act 2006. Our audit work has been undertaken so that we might state to the Charitable Company’s shareholders those matters we are required to state to them in an auditor’s report and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the Charitable Company and the Charitable Company’s shareholders, as a body, for our audit work, for this report, or for the opinions we have formed.

Signed

M pre tpces

Matthew Howard (senior statutory auditor) For and on behalf of

Crowe U.K. LLP Statutory Auditor Medway Bridge House 1-8 Fairmeadow Maidstone Kent ME14 1JP Date: 26 Ausus; 2025

See EX an Graphic – full page picture. Title overlay: Financial stateme - ; ad ‘x :

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES

(INCORPORATING AN INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT)

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2025

	Notes	Unrestricted	Restricted	Total Funds	Total Funds
		Funds	Funds	2025	2024
Income:		£	£	£	£
Donations and legacies	3	7,527,470	1,939,536	9,467,006	7,746,992
Charitable activities	3	2,048,362	-	2,048,362	2,201,696
Tradingactivity	3	8,930,612	141,951	9,072,563	8,960,056
Investmentincome	3	1,683,626	-	1,683,626	179,696
Other income	3	1,752,443	408,115	2,160,558	1,607,473
Total income		21,942,513	2,489,602	24,432,115	20,695,913
Expenditure:
Raisingfunds	5	4,034,596	1,449	4,036,045	3,785,613
Charitableactivities	5	14,006,868	1,159,756	15,166,624	14,954,780
Cost of sales trading subsidiary	5	1,556,347	27,042	1,583,389	1,708,530
Total expenditure		19,597,811	1,188,247	20,786,058	20,448,923
Operating surplus / (deficit)		2,344,702	1,301,355	3,646,057	246,990
Unrealised gains / (losses) on investments	8	775,419	-	775,419	164,290
Net income		3,120,121	1,301,355	4,421,476	411,280
Transfer between funds		1,190,320	(1,190,320)	-	-
Net movement in funds		4,310,441	111,035	4,421,476	411,280
Reconciliation of funds:
Fund balances brought forward		33,769,962	342,093	34,112,055	33,700,775
Fund balances carried forward		38,080,403	453,128	38,533,531	34,112,055

The above statement contains all the gains and losses recognised in the current and preceding year. All operations are continuing.

The notes on pages 52-68 form part of these financial statements.

CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEET ~~TT~~

31 MARCH 2025

	Notes	Total Funds	Total Funds
		2025	2024
Fixed Assets:		£	£
Tangible assets	7	17,937,708	11,582,913
Investments	8	16,623,405	19,444,056
		34,561,113 31,026,969	34,561,113 31,026,969
Current Assets:
Stocks	9	1,045	5,456
Debtors	10	2,616,475	1,778,363
Cash at bank and in hand	11	3,701,940	4,258,642
		6,319,460	6,042,461
CREDITORS:amounts falling due within oneyear	12	2,347,042	2,957,375
NET Current Assets		3,972,418	3,085,086
NET Assets		38,533,531	34,112,055
Reserves:
Designated Funds	14	20,437,708	15,903,884
General Funds	14	17,642,695	17,866,078
Restricted Funds	14	453,128	342,093
		38,533,531	34,112,055

Approved by the Board on 22 August 2025

and signed on its behalf:

bran Prva

A Rhodes

Chair of Trustees

The notes on pages 52-68 form part of these financial statements.

BALANCE SHEET ~~TT~~

31 MARCH 2025

Registered charity no. 1021367 Registered company no. 2803242

	Notes	Total Funds	Total Funds
		2025	2024
Fixed Assets:		£	£
Tangible assets	7	17,937,708	11,582,913
Investments	8	16,623,407	19,444,058
		34,561,115	31,026,971
Current Assets:
Debtors	10	3,985,451	2,994,727
Cash at bank and in hand	11	1,415,014	2,244,740
		5,400,465	5,239,467
CREDITORS:amounts falling due within oneyear	12	1,428,047	2,154,381
NET Current Assets		3,972,418	3,085,086
NET Assets		38,533,533	34,112,057
Reserves:
Designated Funds	14	20,437,708	15,903,884
General Funds	14	17,642,697	17,866,080
Restricted Funds	14	453,128	342,093
		38,533,533	34,112,057

Approved by the Board on 22 August 2025

and signed on its behalf:

bran Prva

A Rhodes

Chair of Trustees

The notes on pages 52-68 form part of these financial statements.

CONSOLIDATED CASH FLOW STATEMENT

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2025

Reconciliation of net incoming resources to net cash inflow	Total Funds	Total Funds
from Operating Activities	2025	2024
	£	£
Net incoming resources	3,646,057	246,990
Investmentincome	(79,628)	(77,608)
Income received from investment loan	(1,603,998)	(102,088)
(Profit) / Loss on disposal of fixed assets	(7,385)	(6,054)
Amortisation	417	42,780
Depreciation	1,282,822	736,295
(Increase) / Decrease in stock	4,411	(3,838)
Decrease / (Increase) in debtors	(838,112)	(1,064,042)
Increase / (Decrease) in creditors	(610,333)	1,137,955
Net cash inflow from operating activities	1,794,251	910,390
Returns on investment
Interest received	79,628	77,608
Capital expenditure and financial investments
Purchases of tangible fixed assets	(7,637,617)	(8,235,481)
Proceeds from disposal of tangible fixed assets	7,385	11,280
Investments made in year	(1,000,000)	(1,050,000)
Proceeds on disposal of investment	3,300,000	3,500,000
Profit share on settlement of investment loan	1,597,704	-
Loan repayments received	1,301,947	2,589,067
Net cash flow from capital expenditure and financial investments	(2,430,581)	(3,185,134)
Net cash outflow	(556,702)	(2,197,136)
Cash at bank and in hand
Opening balance at 1 April 2024	4,258,642	6,455,778
Net cashoutflow for the year	(556,702)	(2,197,136)
Closing balance at 31st March 2025	3,701,940	4,258,642

Notes to the Financial Statements

b) Basis of consolidation

1. Accounting policies

General information

The principal activity of the charity is to relieve sick and injured people in South East England and surrounding areas by providing a Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) - air ambulance service - for the benefit of the communities.

The charity is incorporated and domiciled in the UK. The address of its registered office is Air Ambulance Building Rochester City Airport Maidstone Road Chatham Kent ME5 9SD

The following accounting policies have been applied consistently in dealing with items which are considered material in relation to the Group’s financial status.

a) Basis of preparation

The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and the Republic of Ireland (FRS102) - (effective 1 January 2019) – (Charities SORP (FRS 102)), the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and the Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) and the Companies Act 2006.

KSS meets the definition of a public benefit entity under FRS 102. Assets and liabilities are initially recognised at historical cost or transaction value unless otherwise stated in the relevant accounting policy note. Accounting standards require the Trustees to consider the appropriateness of the going concern basis when preparing the financial statements. The Trustees have taken notice of the Financial Reporting Council guidance, which requires the reasons for this decision to be explained. The Trustees regard the going concern basis as remaining appropriate for the reasons outlined in the Trustees report. Thus, they continue to adopt the going concern basis of accounting in preparing the annual financial statements.

The Statement of Financial Activities (SoFA) and Balance Sheet consolidate the financial statements of KSS and its subsidiary undertaking, Air Ambulance Promotions Limited. The results of the subsidiary are consolidated on a line-by-line basis. In accordance with Section 408 of the Companies Act 2006, KSS has not presented its statement of financial activities. The excess of income over expenditure of KSS was £4.4m (2024: £0.4m).

c) Fund accounting

Designated funds

Unrestricted funds that are earmarked for a particular purpose by the Trustees. The aim and use of each designated fund are set out in note 14.

General funds

Unrestricted funds which are available for use at the discretion of the Trustees in furtherance of the general objectives of KSS and which have not been designated for other purposes.

Restricted funds

Funds which are to be used in accordance with specific restrictions imposed by donors, or which have been raised by the Charity for particular purposes. The cost of raising and administering such funds is charged against the specific fund. The aim and use of each restricted fund are set out in note 14. Investment income and gains or losses on quoted investments are allocated to general funds, unless otherwise stated.

d) Incoming resources

All incoming resources are included in the Statement of Financial Activities (SoFA) when the charity is legally entitled to the income after any performance conditions have been met, the amount can be measured reliably, and it is probable that the income will be received. Donations are recognised by the charity on receipt. If there are conditions attached to the donation, and this requires a level of performance before entitlement can be obtained, then income is deferred until those conditions are fully met or fulfilment of those

conditions is within the control of the Charity and it is probable that they will be fulfilled. Donated facilities and donated professional services are recognised in income at their fair value when their economic benefit is received, it can be measured reliably, and the Charity has control over the item. Fair value is determined on the basis of the value of the gift to the Charity. For example, the amount the Charity would be willing to pay in the open market for such facilities and services. A corresponding amount is recognised in expenditure. No amount is included in the financial statements for volunteer time in line with the SORP (FRS 102).

For legacies, entitlement is the earlier of the charity being notified of an impending distribution or the legacy being received. Income from trading activities includes income earned from fundraising events and trading activities to raise funds for the charity. Income is received in exchange for supplying goods and services in order to raise funds and is recognised when entitlement has occurred. The Charity receives grants in respect of furthering its charitable activities. Income from grants is recognised at fair value at the earlier of receipt or when the Charity has entitlement after any performance conditions have been met, it is probable that the income will be received and the amount can be measured reliably. Investment income is earned through holding assets for investment purposes such as loans and bank accounts.

Interest on funds held on deposit is included when receivable and the amount can be measured reliably by the Charity; this is normally upon notification of the interest paid or payable by the bank.

Income tax recoverable in relation to donations received under Gift Aid or deeds of covenant is recognised on receipt.

e) Resources expended

All expenditure is accounted for on an accruals basis and has been classified under headings that aggregate all costs related to the category. Where costs are not directly attributed to particular headings, they have been allocated to

activities on a basis consistent with the use of the resources.

Fundraising and publicity costs are those incurred in seeking voluntary contributions and do not include the cost of disseminating information in support of the charitable activities.

Charitable expenditure is that expenditure directly in connection with the objects of the charity and includes management and support costs.

f) Tangible fixed assets and depreciation

Tangible fixed assets are capitalised and included at cost including any incidental expenses of acquisition. Depreciation is provided on all tangible fixed assets at annual rates calculated to write off the cost, less estimated residual value, of each asset evenly over its anticipated useful life, as follows:

Leasehold improvements	straight line over the term of the respective lease
Helicopters	straight line on an overall 20-year life, adjusted for residual value, and purchase price if second- hand
Plant and equipment	10% on cost
Office equipment	20% on cost
Computer equipment	25% on cost
Helicopter equipment	20% on cost
Motor vehicles 25% on cost

g) Investments

Listed investments are stated at market value at the balance sheet date. The SoFA includes the net gains and losses arising on revaluations and disposals throughout the year. Unlisted investments (including investments in subsidiaries) are measured at cost less accumulated impairment. Loans and other amounts receivable and payable, are initially measured at present value of the future cash flows and subsequently at amortised cost using the effective interest method.

h) Stock

Stock consists of purchased goods for resale. Stocks are valued at the lower of cost and net realisable value. Items donated for resale or distribution are not included in the financial statements unless they are sold or distributed.

i) Debtors

Trade debtors and other debtors are recognised at their transaction price less any allowance for doubtful debts.

j) Cash at bank and in hand

Cash at bank and in hand includes cash in hand and deposits held with UK banks.

k) Value added tax

Irrecoverable value added tax is included within the expenditure to which it relates.

l) Operating leases

Rentals applicable to operating leases are charged to the SoFA over the period in which the cost is incurred. Details of operating lease commitments are as shown in note 15.

m) Pensions

KSS operates a defined contribution pension scheme for its employees. Contributions to this scheme are charged to resources expended as they fall due. KSS has no potential liability other than the payment of these contributions.

l) Corporation tax

No provision has been made for corporation tax, as KSS is able to claim full statutory exemption subject to the proper application of all its charitable reserves.

m) Creditors

Trade creditors and other creditors are recognised at their nominal value when KSS has an obligation to make payment to a third party.

n) Financial instruments

KSS only has financial assets and financial liabilities of a kind that qualify as basic financial instruments. Basic financial instruments are initially recognised at transaction value and subsequently measured at their settlement value with the exception of loans which are subsequently measured at amortised cost using the effective interest method.

2. Judgements in applying accounting policies and key sources of estimation uncertainty

The charity may be required to make estimates and assumptions concerning the future. These estimates and judgements are based on historical experience and other factors, including expectations of future events that are believed to be reasonable under the circumstances. The resulting accounting estimates will, by definition, seldom equal the related actual results.

The principal areas where judgement was exercised are as follows:

i) Tangible and intangible fixed assets: The Trustees annually assess both the residual value of these assets and the expected useful life of such assets which is currently judged to be up to 20 years, based on experience.
i) Accrued legacy income: Management judgements are required to estimate a suitable amount of legacy income to accrue at the reporting date. The amount is calculated based on the conditions set out in the Charity SORP (FRS 102).
ii) Going concern: The Trustees use budgets and forecasts when concluding upon the going concern assertion when preparing the financial statements. These forecasts have estimates and judgements included throughout but are based on the historic performance of the charity and expected future income and expenditure.

3. Incoming Resources

	Unrestricted	Restricted	Total Funds	Total Funds
	Funds	Funds	2025	2024
Donations and legacies:	£	£	£	£
Donations (not arising from events)	1,768,779	1,929,234	3,698,013	2,694,789
Legacies & in memorium	5,667,715	10,302	5,678,017	4,960,288
Collection boxes	90,976	-	90,976	91,915
	7,527,470	1,939,536	9,467,006	7,746,992
Charitable activities:
Intangible income –	19,136	-	19,136	15,965
drugs & medical consumables
Intangible income -	-	-	-	13,094
armed forces, doctors’ salaries
Clinical staff funded by NHS	2,015,026	-	2,015,026	2,009,592
Other charitable income	8,500	-	8,500	-
Lease income	-	-	-	160,149
Profit/(Loss) on disposal of fixed assets	7,385	-	7,385	6,054
Exchange rategains/(loss)	(1,685)	-	(1,685)	(3,157)
	2,048,362	-	2,048,362	2,201,696
Income from trading subsidiary	8,930,612	141,951	9,072,563	8,960,056
Investment income
Bank deposit interest	42,574	-	42,574	44,870
Income from loan	1,603,997	-	1,603,997	102,088
Bank deposit interest - tradingsubsidiary	37,055	-	37,055	32,738
	1,683,626	-	1,683,626	179,696
Other income
Group fundraising and events	1,752,443	408,115	2,160,558	1,607,473
TOTAL INCOME	21,942,513	2,489,602	24,432,115	20,695,913

Income in 2024 included restricted income of £825,893 and unrestricted income of £19,870,020.

4. Net Income from Trading Activities of Subsidiary

KSS has one trading subsidiary that is incorporated in the UK, Air Ambulance Promotions Limited (registered no. 02674568). KSS owns 100% of the issued share capital of the company. A summary of its trading results is shown below:

trading results is shown below:
	Total Funds	Total Funds
	2025	2024
	£	£
Turnover	9,072,563	8,960,061
Cost of sales	(1,511,039)	(1,634,771)
Gross profit:	7,561,524	7,325,290
Interestreceivable	37,055	32,738
	7,598,579	7,358,028
Less overheads
Administrative expenses	(72,349)	(73,758)
Income from subsidiary	7,526,230	7,284,270
Comprising:
General funds	7,411,321	7,162,168
Restricted funds	114,909	122,102
Total income from subsidiary	7,526,230	7,284,270

Air Ambulance Promotions Limited gift aided the year-end profit of £7,526,230 (2024: £7,284,270) to KSS and this was paid by 14 August 2025.

5. Analysis of Total Resources Expended	5. Analysis of Total Resources Expended
	Unrestricted	Restricted	Total funds	Total funds
	funds	funds	2025	2024
Raising funds:	£	£	£	£
Staff costs	2,407,353	-	2,407,353	2,182,862
Consultancy fees	-	-	-	12,929
Advertising, promotion and publicity	276,053	-	276,053	240,604
Other costs	1,351,190	1,449	1,352,639	1,349,218
	4,034,596	1,449	4,036,045	3,785,613
Direct charitable expenditure:
Air ambulance running costs	6,773,700	1,117,561	7,891,261	8,402,451
Helicopter depreciation	907,653	-	907,653	314,477
Paramedics costs	1,238,206	-	1,238,206	1,103,970
Clinicalmanagers	520,193	-	520,193	509,626
Doctors	1,682,202	-	1,682,202	1,588,637
Operational employees	747,952	-	747,952	756,530
Research and education	521,068	42,195	563,263	705,662
Depreciation of helicopter equipment	100,144	-	100,144	141,205
	12,491,118	1,159,756	13,650,874	13,522,558
Management and administration
Staff costs	501,468	-	501,468	468,332
Professional fees	39,325	-	39,325	77,141
Other costs	231,817	-	231,817	231,537
	772,610	-	772,610	777,010
Supporting costs and depreciation
Property expenses	568,788	-	568,788	473,923
Depreciation	174,352	-	174,352	181,289
	743,140	-	743,140	655,212
Total charitable expenditure	14,006,868	1,159,756	15,166,624	14,954,780
Trading subsidiary cost	1,556,347	27,042	1,583,389	1,708,530
TOTAL EXPENDITURE	19,597,811	1,188,247	20,786,058	20,448,923

Expenditure in 2024 included £604,068 of restricted expenditure and £19,844,855 of unrestricted expenditure.

6. Total Resources Expended

Total resources expended is stated after charging:	Total resources expended is stated after charging:	Total funds	Total funds
		2025	2024
		£	£
Auditors’ remuneration	- as auditors	26,450	24,500
	- for taxation services	1,150	1,100
	- for professional advice provided	2,280	6,178
Operating leases	- land and buildings	246,691	226,103
	- helicopter (including pilotage)	5,407,494	5,754,369
	- cars	63,642	25,005
	- office equipment	7,692	14,376
Depreciation		1,282,822	736,295
Staff costs		2025	2024
		£	£
Wages and salaries		4,295,370	4,075,840
Social security costs		459,407	422,455
Pension costs		451,924	408,632
		5,206,701	4,906,927

The average number of employees excluding Trustees,	2025	2024
analysed by function was:
Management and administration	24	21
Fundraising and publicity	43	40
Direct charitable expenditure,includingsecondees and emeritus	69	69
	136	130

The average number of full-time equivalent staff is 106 (2024:106) including 75 full time (2024: 78) and 61 part time (2024: 53). Of this number 22 (2024: 26) FTE are secondees.

17 (2024: 17) employees earned more than £60,000 during the year in bandings as follows:

	2025	2024
£60K - £70K	7	7
£70K - £80K	2	2
£80K - £90K	4	4
£90K - £100K	1	2
£100K - £110K	1	1
£110K - £120K	1	-
£160K - £170K	-	1
£170K - £180K	1	-

The total amount of employee benefits received by the 8 (2024: 8) members of the Senior Leadership Team was £895,529 (2024: £894,097).

Included within direct charitable expenditure is the cost of staff not directly employed by KSS. This mainly relates to the cost of doctors on board the helicopters who are employed directly by the NHS and the military £1,061,037 (2024: £917,596) and NHS clinical managers and paramedics £1,203,782 (2024: £1,151,351).

7. Tangible Fixed Assets

Group	Redhill Base	Helicopter	Helicopter	Motor	Computer	Rochester	Total
and Charity			Equipment	Vehicles	and Office	Base
			(Incl plant)		Equipment
Cost	£	£	£	£	£	£	£
At 1stApril 2024	2,411,323	8,075,737	1,137,018	240,482	536,638	2,362,369	14,763,567
Additions	-	7,380,537	151,636	53,061	52,383	-	7,637,617
Disposals	-	-	(11,938)	(14,995)	-	-	(26,933)
At 31st March 2025	2,411,323	15,456,274	1,276,716	278,548	589,021	2,362,369	22,374,251
Depreciation
At 1stApril 2024	620,683	314,477	878,362	163,942	510,728	692,462	3,180,654
Disposals	-	-	(11,938)	(14,995)	-	-	(26,933)
Charge for theyear	101,832	907,653	100,144	34,940	18,590	119,663	1,282,822
At 31stMarch 2025	722,515	1,222,130	966,568	183,887	529,318	812,125	4,436,543
Net book values at
At 31st March 2025	1,688,808	14,234,144	310,148	94,661	59,703	1,550,244	17,937,708
At 31st March 2024	1,790,640	7,761,260	258,656	76,540	25,910	1,669,907	11,582,913

8. Fixed Asset Investments

Group		Listed	Unlisted	Total
		Investments	Investments
Market Value		£	£	£
At 1stApril 2024		18,047,986	1,396,070	19,444,056
Additional Investment in Year		1,000,000	-	1,000,000
Income from loan		-	1,603,998	1,603,998
Disposal in year		(3,300,000)	-	(3,300,000)
Proceeds on settlement of investment	loan	-	(1,597,704)	(1,597,704)
Repayment of Loans		-	(1,301,947)	(1,301,947)
Amortisation		-	(417)	(417)
Increase/(Decrease)in valuation		775,419	-	775,419
At 31st March 2025		16,523,405	100,000	16,623,405
Charity	Shares in	Listed	Unlisted	Total
	Subsidiary	Investments	Investments
	Company
Market Value	£	£	£	£
At 1 April 2024	2	18,047,986	1,396,070	19,444,058
Additional Investment in Year	-	1,000,000	-	1,000,000
Income from loan	-	-	1,603,998	1,603,998
Disposal in year	-	(3,300,000)	-	(3,300,000)
Proceeds on settlement of investment loan		-	(1,597,704)	(1,597,704)
Repayment of Loans	-	-	(1,301,947)	(1,301,947)
Amortisation	-	-	(417)	(417)
Increase/(Decrease)in valuation	-	775,419	-	775,419
At 31st March 2025	2	16,523,405	100,000	16,623,407
Group and Charity			Original	Total
			Cost
Listed investments comprise the following:			£	£
Evelyn Partners Portfolio			6,474,625	9,441,553
Ruffer LLP Portfolio			4,800,000	7,081,852
			11,274,625	16,523,405

Group and Charity	2025	2024
	£	£
Unlisted investments comprise the following:
Helicopter Loans	-	1,296,071
Enterprise Investment	100,000	100,000
	100,000	1,396,071
	2025	2024
Movement on listed investments	£	£
Market Value at the Beginning of Year	18,047,986	20,308,696
Additions in Year	1,000,000	1,050,000
Disposals in Year	(3,300,000)	(3,500,000)
	15,747,986	17,858,696
Market Value at End of Year	16,523,405	18,047,986
Increase/(Decrease) in value	775,419	189,290
Subsidiary Balance Sheet	2025	2024
The Assets and Liabilities of the subsidiary were:	£	£
Current Assets
Stock	1,045	5,456
Debtors	737,217	780,182
Cash at Bank	2,286,926	2,013,902
	3,025,188	2,799,540
Creditors: Amounts Falling Due Within One Year	3,025,186	2,799,538
	2	2
Capital and reserves:
Called up share capital	2	2
Profit and loss account	-	-
	2	2

All loans and monies due by Air Ambulance Promotions Limited to KSS are secured by a first floating charge created on 30[th] March 1994 on the subsidiary company’s assets.

9. Stocks

9. Stocks
	Charity		Group
	2025	2024	2025	2024
	£	£	£	£
Goods for resale	-	-	1,045	5,456
10. Debtors
	Charity		Group
	2025	2024	2025	2024
	£	£	£	£
TradeDebtors	39,008	7,800	39,008	10,131
Current Account with Subsidiary	2,106,193	1,993,131	-	-
Other Debtors	257,630	3,619	605,816	431,077
Prepayments and Accrued Income	1,582,620	990,177	1,971,651	1,337,155
	3,985,451	2,994,727	2,616,475	1,778,363

11. Cash in Hand and at Bank

	Charity	Charity	Group	Group
	2025	2024	2025	2024
	£	£	£	£
Investment Deposit Accounts	110,404	107,358	110,404	107,358
Other Bank Accounts	1,303,519	2,136,729	3,590,445	4,150,616
PettyCash	1,091	653	1,091	668
	1,415,014	2,244,740	3,701,940	4,258,642

12. Creditors: Amounts Falling Due Within One Year

	Charity	Charity	Group	Group
	2025	2024	2025	2024
	£	£	£	£
TradeCreditors	834,759	1,417,310	1,044,832	1,504,417
Other Taxation and Social Security	134,010	137,996	134,010	134,580
Other Creditors	57,888	65,534	57,888	65,534
Accruals and Deferred Income	401,390	533,541	1,110,312	1,252,844
	1,428,047	2,154,381	2,347,042	2,957,375

Deferred income is made up of amounts received by subscribers to lotteries and raffles which are yet to be drawn. All amounts are due in less than one year.

13. Financial Instruments

13. Financial Instruments
Financial Assets	Charity		Group
	2025	2024	2025	2024
	£	£	£	£
Financial Assets Measured at Amortised Cost	20,387,658	23,662,846	30,469,792	24,113,405
Financial Liabilities	Charity		Group
	2025	2024	2025	2024
	£	£	£	£
Financial Liabilities Measured at Amortised Cost	1,294,039	2,016,387	813,570	2,123,413

Financial assets measured at amortised cost comprise cash at bank, trade debtors, loans to SAS and listed investments.

Financial Liabilities measured at amortised cost comprise trade creditors, and accruals.

14. Analysis of Funds

Unrestricted Designated and General Funds

The Unrestricted funds are available for the purposes of KSS, to be spent as the Trustees see fit to meet the objectives of KSS. An element of these funds, £20,437,708 (2024: £15,903,884) has been defined as designated funds and earmarked for future helicopter acquisition, property relocation and supporting the net book value of the fixed assets. A full analysis is detailed below. The balance of £17,642,695 (2024: £17,866,078) has been classified as General funds.

The General funds are not specifically earmarked but equate to 8.8 months of expenditure and are used to further the objectives of KSS.

Designated Funds	At 31st March 2024	Utilised / Released	New Designations	At 31st March 2025
	£	£	£	£
Fixed Assets	11,582,913	(1,282,822)	7,637,617	17,937,708
PropertyRelocation	1,000,000	-	-	1,000,000
Future Helicopters	3,320,971	(3,320,971)	1,500,000	1,500,000
	15,903,884	(4,603,793)	9,137,617	20,437,708

The Fixed Assets fund is equal to the net book value of Fixed Assets held.

The Property Relocation fund is an amount set aside as a contribution toward the potential cost of relocation if the charity, were it required to move either of its bases.

The future helicopter fund is an amount set aside as a contribution toward the replacement cost of the helicopter fleet.

Movements in Funds
Group	General	Designated	Total	Restricted	Total Funds	Total Funds
			Unrestricted		2025	2024
	£	£	£	£	£	£
At 1stApril 2024	17,866,078	15,903,884	33,769,962	342,093	34,112,055	33,700,775
TotalIncome	21,942,513	-	21,942,513	2,489,602	24,432,115	20,695,913
TotalExpenditure	(14,994,018)	(4,603,793)	(19,597,811)	(1,188,247)	(20,786,058)	(20,448,923)
(Loss)/gain on investments	775,419	-	775,419	-	775,419	164,290
Transfers between funds	(7,947,297)	9,137,617	1,190,320	(1,190,320)	-	-
At 31st March 2025	17,642,695	20,437,708	38,080,403	453,128	38,533,531	34,112,055
Charity	General	Designated	Total	Restricted	Total Funds	Total Funds
			Unrestricted		2025	2024
	£	£	£	£	£	£
At 1stApril 2024	17,866,080	15,903,884	33,769,964	342,093	34,112,057	33,700,777
TotalIncome	20,359,125	-	20,359,125	2,489,602	21,848,727	18,987,383
TotalExpenditure	(13,410,630)	(4,603,793)	(18,014,423)	(1,188,247)	(19,202,670)	(18,740,393)
(Loss)/gain on investments	775,419	-	775,419	-	775,419	164,290
Transfers between funds	(7,947,297)	9,137,617	1,190,320	(1,190,320)	-	-
At 31st March 2025	17,642,697	20,437,708	38,080,405	453,128	38,533,533	34,112,057

Analysis of Net Assets Between Funds	Analysis of Net Assets Between Funds
Group	General	Designated	Total	Restricted	Total Funds	Total Funds
			Unrestricted		2025	2024
	£	£	£	£	£	£
Tangible Fixed Assets	-	17,937,708	17,937,708	-	17,937,708	11,582,913
Investments	14,123,405	2,500,000	16,623,405	-	16,623,405	19,444,056
Cash	3,248,812	-	3,248,812	453,128	3,701,940	4,258,642
Other Assets and Liabilities	270,478	-	270,478	-	270,478	(1,173,556)
	17,642,694	20,437,708	38,080,403	425,128	38,533,531	34,112,055

Charity	General	Designated	Total	Restricted	Total Funds	Total Funds
			Unrestricted		2025	2024
	£	£	£	£	£	£
Tangible Fixed Assets	-	17,937,708	17,937,708	-	17,937,708	11,582,913
Investments	14,123,407	2,500,000	16,623,407	-	16,623,407	19,444,058
Cash	961,886	-	961,886	453,128	1,415,014	2,244,740
Other Assets and Liabilities	2,557,404	-	2,557,404	-	2,557,404	840,346
	17,642,697	20,437,708	38,080,405	453,128	38,533,533	34,112,057

Restricted Funds
Group & Charity	At 31st March	Income	Resources	Transfers	At 31st March
	2024	Resources	Expended	between	2025
				Funds
	£	£	£	£	£
Buy it for life appeal	12,860	1,960,712	(973,572)	(1,000,000)	-
Training Centre	15,208	-		(3,262)	11,946
Night flying	-	141,951	(141,951)	-	-
Fidelity Mannequins - Training	3,066	-	-	-	3,066
Ultrasound	7,031	-	-	-	7,031
Autopulse - Cardiac Support pump	7,500	-	-	-	7,500
Compact suction units	766	-	(766)	-	-
Load bearing vests	1,100	-	-	-	1,100
Rescue warming mats	371	-	-	-	371
Research and innovation - whole blood	-	23,190	(5,000)	-	18,190
Blood Transfusions	-	10,500	(10,500)	-	-
Headscanner Research	30,000	-	-	-	30,000
Training equipment	17,005	-	-	(17,005)	-
Training Defib
Equipment and Annie	-	2,897	-	-	2,897
Bodies
Lions equipment	11,317	9,738	-	(21,055)	-
Tempus Pro Monitor	35,060	18,000	-	(31,388)	21,672
Ventilator	23,500	-	-	-	23,500
Fuel costs	-	7,000	(7,000)	-	-
Equipment	-	22,720	-	(22,720)	-
Drones project	-	20,000	(20,000)	-	-
ECPR fund	-	40,000	-	(40,000)	-
Community response fund	15,000	-	-	-	15,000
Community training	724	2,171	(2,895)	-	-
Aftercare Nurse	108,125	-	-	-	108,125
Community Response Fund - Aftercare Package	-	1,000	(1,000)	-	-
Crew Uniforms	-	10,416	(10,416)	-	-
PINS	49,500	159,030	(13,300)	-	195,230
Christmas day lunch	-	281	(281)	-	-
Xmas Baubles	-	1,449	(1,449)	-	-
Body Cameras	3,960	-	-	(3,960)	-
Rapid Response	-	616	(116)	-	500
Rapid Response Rotary	-	50,930	-	(50,930)	-
Off Dutycrew room	-	7000	-	-	7,000
	342,093	2,489,601	(1,188,246)	(1,190,320)	453,128

The transfer of funds amounting to £1,190,320 includes the following capitalised items:

Buy it for life appeal	£1,000,000	Purchase of G-KSST
Training centre	£3,262	Training centre fit-out
Training equipment	£17,005	Medical training equipment
Lions equipment	£21,055	Medical equipment funded by Lions
Tempus Pro Monitor	£31,388	Tempus pro monitors
Equipment	£22,720	Medical equipment funded by other donors
ECPR Fund	£40,000	ECPR equipment
Body Cameras	£3,960	crew worn body cameras
Rapid Response Rotary	£50,930	New RRV

Restricted Funds

Restricted funds represent funds held for the provision of emergency equipment and resources for use in Kent, Surrey and Sussex. These funds include donations and grants specifically for:

Buyit for life appeal	Charitable appeal to fund thepurchase of G-KSST
Training centre fund	Grant received from the Libor Fund for the development of a trainingcentre
	Receives the profit from the 24/7 weekly draw operated by AAPL
Night flying	and other donations. The funds are used in support of the night
	flying operations
Fidelitymannequins	Thepurchase of high-fidelitymannequins for training
Ultrasound	Thepurchase of ultrasound diagnostic equipment
Autopulse – cardiac support	The purchase of cardiac support pumps
Compact suction units	Thepurchase of compact suction units
Load bearingvests	Thepurchase of load bearingvests used bythe crew
Rescue warming mats	The purchase of rescue warming mats used to maintain patient bodytemperature
Research and innovation - whole blood	The evaluation of the use of whole blood in HEMS
Blood Transfusions	Thepurchase of blood to support HEMS blood transfusions
Headscanner Research
Trainingequipment	Thepurchase of medical trainingequipment
Training Defib Equipment and Annie Bodies	The purchase of training equipment for defibrillation and resuscitation
Lions equipment	Donations andgrants specificallyfrom the Lions Club International
Tempus Pro Monitor	Tempus ALS system forprehospital monitoringand defibrillation
Ventilator	Thepurchase of ventilators
Fuel costs	Fuel for helicopter flyingmissions
Equipment	Medical and helicopter equipment
Dronesproject	Supportingthe evaluation of drones in emergencymedical service
ECPR Fund	Purchase of equipment and consumables to support Extracorporeal CardiopulmonaryResuscitation(ECPR)
Community Response fund	Supporting the development of new community projects such as Patient and Family Aftercare and prevention and education training to equip ourcommunitiesto provide critical first response
Communityeducation	Funds to support communityeducation

Aftercare	Supportingthe development and operation of an aftercare service
Community Response Fund- AftercarePackage	Funds provided to support patient aftercare
Crew Uniforms	Fundsprovidedpurchase crew uniforms
PINS	Supportingthe Development of Point in Space navigation
Christmas Day Lunch	Funds provided specifically to support the crew’s Christmas day lunch
Christmas Baubles	Fundsprovidedpurchase Christmas decorations for resale
BodyCameras	Fundsprovidedpurchase crew worn bodycameras
Rapid Response	Support of HEMSprovision in the Kent area
Rapid Response Rotary	Support of thepurchase of Rapid Response Vehicles
Off Dutycrew room	Fund to support the fit out of the off-dutycrew room

15. Operating Lease Commitments

At the balance sheet date, the charity’s future minimum lease payments under non-cancellable operating leases or, as in the case of the Redhill Hangar 10 until the next break clause of 13 March 2027, were as follows:

were as follows:
	1 year or less	2 to 5 years	More than	5	Total
			years		commitment
					s
	£	£		£	£
Land & Buildings	-	-	-		-
Redhill Hangar 10	220,000	209,151	-		429,151
Rochester	20,000	80,000	165,260		265,260
	240,000	289,151	165,260		694,411
Aviation capability	5,413,872	12,652,145	-		18,066,017
Vehicles	36,253	66,804	-		103,057
Total Lease Commitments	5,690,125	13,008,100	165,260		18,863,485
Expiry date:
Redhill Hangar 10	12 March 2042
Rochester		2 July 2038
Length of unexpired leases at 31st March
2025:
Redhill Hangar 10		16.96 years
Rochester		13.25 years

As part of the service agreement with Gama G-KSSC and G-KSST have been leased to Gama under operating leases for a nominal sum and will continue to be piloted and maintained by them until the conclusion of the service agreement to 31 July 2028.

16. Related Party Transactions

The following related party transactions took place with AAPL in the year:

The following related party transactions took place	with AAPL in the year:
	2025	2024
	£	£
Gift aided lottery and raffle profits	5,999,047	5,965,077
Gift aided AAPL profits	1,223,631	1,005,765
Total gift aided donations	7,222,678	6,970,842

Recharges for staff costs	256,321	269,299
Recharges for property and administration	47,231	44,128
Total Recharges	303,552	313,427

During the year, 6 Trustees made donations totalling £1,025 in aggregate, which also attracted Gift Aid of £95.

Trustee remuneration and benefits

None of the trustees have been paid any remuneration or received any other benefits from an employment with their charity or a related entity.

Trustee Expenses

6 Trustees were paid a total of £959 expenses during the year (2024: £520).

Included in Management and Administration costs is the cost of Trustees’ liability insurance (including professional indemnity cover) amounting to £6,310 (2024: £6,310).

VAIR AMBULANCE CHARITY KSSX,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, G-KSS • MrAmbuion Stay up to date with KSS 000 @airambulancekss 01634 471900 Q hello@aakss.org.uk aakss.org.uk Air Ambulance Charity Kent Surrey Sussex (KSS). Registered office: Rochester CityAirport, Maidstone Road, Chatham, Kent ME5 9SD. A registered charity in England and Wales (No. 1021367). A registered company limited by guarantee in England and Wales (No. 2803242). Air Ambulance Promotions Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Air Ambulance Charity Kent Surrey Sussex (KSS) and is a registered company in England and Wales (No. 2674568). FUNDRAISING REGULATOR

Administrative details

Contact us

Table of contents

Introduction from our Chair eee

baw Poca

Welcome from our Chief Executive

Our activities for public benefit

Providing a frontline HEMS – air ambulance service – for Kent, Surrey and Sussex

Conducting world-leading research and innovation in pre-hospital emergency medicine

Supporting former patients and their loved ones with our Patient and Family Aftercare Service

Providing education initiatives to help train lifesavers, both professionally and in our communities

Delivering prevention campaigns to help keep people safe and prevent medical emergencies

Offering meaningful and impactful volunteering opportunities within our communities

Our key performance and achievements

Missions by air and and road

Missions by county

Male patients by age group

Female patients by age group

Mission frequency by time of day

Three most frequent hospitals patients were taken to for onward care

Our clinical governance

Developing our aviation capability

In-flight treatment and care

Developing our fleet

Expanding our Patient and Family Aftercare Service

Improving survival rate from cardiac arrest in our communities

Supporting development of a more inclusive pre-hospital emergency medicine workforce

Published research

National and international collaboration

Drones and future delivery models

How we raise funds

Raising funds

Increasing awareness

Our fundraising promise

We will commit to high standards

We will be clear, honest and open

We will be respectful

We will be fair and reasonable

We will be accountable and responsible

Strategy, governance and oversight

Managing complaints

Our people

Our KSS Volunteers

Environmental, social, governance (ESG)

Our plans for the future

Our Trustees

Trustee appointment

Declaration of interests

Trustees who served during the year were as follows:

Our key management personnel

Our decision-making structure: Our committees

Income

Expenditure

Air Ambulance Promotions Ltd (AAPL)

Going Concern

Reserves Policy

Liquidity Policy

Policy on General Funds

Total Reserves

Restricted Reserves

Designated (unrestricted) Funds at Year-end

Risk-based Approach

Investment Policy and performance

Investment performance

Key risks and uncertainties

The most significant risks we faced in 2024/25

The most significant risks we face in the year ahead

Operational

Helicopter ownership

External economic shock

Cyber-protection

~~|~~ Statement of Trustees’ responsibilities

Disclosure of Information to Auditors

horn Yyae

INDEPENDENT AUDITOR’S REPORT

Opinion

Basis for Opinion

Conclusions Relating to Going Concern

Other information

| Statement of Trustees’ responsibilities