AN AIRBORNE 999 service has scooped a major national award.

Yorkshire Air Ambulance won the 2017 Air Ambulance Service Award at the Health Business Awards in London.

The awards recognise and celebrate the significant contributions made each year by organisations and individuals that work inside and alongside the NHS.

Yorkshire Air Ambulance serves five million people across Yorkshire and carries out more than 1,250 missions every year. It needs to raise £12,000 every day to keep saving lives.

Over the last 12 months, the charity has brought into service two new state-of-the-art Airbus H145 helicopters. It has also introduced extended night flying hours and started carrying blood on board for the first time, enabling critically injured patients to receive transfusions at the scene of accidents or in the air.