People cheered as a helicopter landed on the £14 million pound pad at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton for the first time at 5pm on Tuesday, February 24.
The first test landings were described as an “important milestone” in the long running helipad saga.
Built in 2018, the pad was due to open in 2019.
But a series of problems saw the opening date pushed further back.
There were fears helicopters could destroy the cladding on the hospital building.
University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust previously told The Argus that this cladding was fixed in September 2023 but there was still “minor construction work” to be done on the roof.
Repairs to allow the pad, which sits above the Trevor Mann Baby unit, to open began in February 2023, some four years after the cladding fault was discovered.
In 2024, the trust said further tests were needed on a number of window fixings to “ensure their integrity” after concerns landing helicopters could blow out the windows of the unit for seriously ill and premature babies.
Earlier this month, the trust confirmed that, weather depending, the helipad was due to undergo test flights by March, with the view to it receiving patients “soon thereafter”.
This evening saw two runs of test flights, one at 5pm and another at 6pm.
A successful landing just after 6pm (Image: EDDIE MITCHELL)
One bystander said: “It’s quite something to see it there finally after all this time.”
While Larisa Shepherd said: “It’s so cool that it has finally landed. Everyone cheered at the end.”
The hospital trust said more complicated test runs will be done soon which will involve dummy runs for the emergency transfer of patients out of the helicopter and down into the hospital.
Dr Stephanie Tilston, major trauma centre clinical lead at University Hospitals Sussex, said: “Today marks an important milestone in regional emergency care.
“Today’s successful test landings bring us a step closer to making the helipad operational, so we can care for patients with the most serious life‑threatening injuries and illnesses even faster than we do now.
“These initial landings allowed us to test the helipad itself, with a view to receiving sign-off from the Civil Aviation Authority. The next step will be to test out our processes for receiving extremely vulnerable patients and transferring them smoothly from the helicopter to the right clinical team – every second counts, and so it is essential we ensure we can perform those transfers as quickly and safely as possible.
“We are now an important step closer to delivering a fully operational helipad for people across Sussex.”
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