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Northern Ireland is to get its first dedicated air ambulance service after £4m of funding was granted during the Chancellor's 2016 budget speech.

George Osborne made the announcement that funding from some of the bank fines from LIBOR scandal will be used to help establish the service.

Calls for Northern Ireland to have its own service were highlighted last July when Dr John Hinds, the ‘flying doctor’ of Irish road racing, was killed in a motorbike accident at a race , aged 35.

The consultant anaesthetist at Craigavon Area Hospital was a respected trauma expert and volunteered as an emergency medic at motorbike racing events across Ireland.

More than 70,000 people signed the petition organised by the HEMS4NI campaign which was presented to Stormont.