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London’s Air Ambulance is more likely to be sent to a stabbing or shooting than a traffic collision, it was revealed today.

Its medics treated 560 victims of violent crime last year — the first time in its almost 30-year history that this category exceeded the number of pedestrians, cyclists, drivers or passengers hurt in crashes, which totalled 533.

The figures are the latest dramatic indication of the knife crime epidemic sweeping the capital. There were 80 fatal stabbings last year.

Dr Gareth Grier, lead clinician at London’s Air Ambulance, said: “It is not unusual now for our teams to perform open-chest surgery for stab wounds twice in a single day. This would have been unheard of a few years back.

“But our world-leading treatments mean that we can give these and other patients we treat the best possible chance of survival.” The service’s annual report revealed that it treated 1,797 critically injured patients, and many more at major incidents such as the Westminster and London Bridge terror attacks.

Victims of stabbings and shootings accounted for 31 per cent of its work. There were an extra 60 such cases compared with the 500 in 2016. Road collisions fell from 606 to 533.

Almost a quarter of cases, 412, involved falls from height. It treated 292 patients involved in incidents on the rail network, or hangings and drownings. Its teams go to an average of five emergencies a day. The 24/7 service, based at the Royal London hospital in Whitechapel, is run by a charity and requires £10 million a year in funds. It has two helicopters and uses fast-response cars at night.

Its trauma doctors are employed by Barts Health and its paramedics seconded from LAS.

Jonathan Jenkins, chief executive of the London’s Air Ambulance charity, said: “We did our best for 1,797 people last year, yet with our annual costs now at £10 million, we have never been more reliant on the generosity of London to ensure our service can keep running.”