The festive season is a time for gathering with our friends, family and loved ones to celebrate and feast together. As the nights draw in and the sparkly lights are turned on, thoughts turn to office parties, family gatherings and mince pies. For many, it's the chance to take a well-earned break and to get excited about the year ahead. It's their favourite time of year.

Yet over the Christmas period, it's a sad fact that many people across our region will be involved in a medical emergency or traumatic incident that leaves them fighting for their lives. When a life-changing incident happens, it's not just the person who is affected, but their family and friends too.

This Christmas the Great Western Air Ambulance Charity Critical Care Team will be working every single day providing potentially life-saving treatment where it's most needed to children and adults across our region. We attend over 5 incidents each day on average, and some days it's many more. Our specialist crew bring the expertise of an Emergency Department directly to the person where and when they need it most.

This is a vital service, yet many people don't realise that we're funded entirely from charitable donations. It's a hard job, which takes a special kind of person, but we couldn't do what we do without you.

This festive season we'll be working hard to keep families together for many more Christmases to come. But we need your help to ensure our crew of Specialist Doctors and Paramedics can go where they're needed most.

Each one of our missions costs at least £1,750 and could potentially save a life. This means we need to raise £8,750 every single day to keep our service flying.

This Christmas, were calling on you to help us fund as many of our Christmas Missions as we can. In doing so, you'll be helping save local lives.

Please help fund a #ChristmasMission