Service · Continuity of care
Bed-to-bed means the patient is under continuous medical supervision from the moment they leave one hospital bed until the moment they are settled in the next — and that every handover in between is planned rather than improvised.
Service · Continuity of care
Most of what goes wrong in a patient transfer happens at the joins. The ambulance that arrives without the right equipment. The hospital that was not told the patient is coming. The oxygen that runs out because someone calculated for the flight but not for the traffic on the way to the airport.
Bed-to-bed is the discipline of treating the whole journey as one clinical episode with a single owner, rather than as four separate bookings that happen to be on the same day.
When each leg is arranged by a different party, nobody holds the whole picture and nobody is accountable for the joins. A single coordinator who has spoken to the treating ward, the ambulance providers at both ends, the flight crew and the receiving hospital can see the failure points before they happen — and can absorb a delay in one leg without the rest of the chain collapsing.
The joins
These are the specific points we plan against, because they are where continuity is most often lost.
The paperwork gap
The equipment gap
The oxygen gap
The acceptance gap
The information gap
The communication gap
Mission log · A full chain
A bed-to-bed transfer is planned backwards from the receiving ward, so that every earlier leg is timed against a confirmed arrival rather than a hoped-for one.
Flight medical crew or the ground team collects the patient from the ward, takes handover from the treating nurse, and confirms the medication and equipment travelling with them.
Equipped ground ambulance, with the route and timing planned against the airport slot rather than against traffic optimism.
Transfer at the aircraft under crew supervision, with monitoring switched over and confirmed before the patient is moved.
Continuous care and documented observations, with the receiving hospital updated on the arrival time as it firms up.
Ground ambulance meets the aircraft, and the patient goes directly to the admitting ward for clinical handover.
Ground transport may be arranged where medically necessary and available under the applicable service terms, and can also be completed by medical transport service or personal transport where the treating physicians consider it appropriate.
Questions we are asked
If your situation is not covered here, the coordination centre will answer directly, day or night.
Call +44 20 3671 5709Ground ambulance at both ends, the flight, all handovers, and the documentation moving with the patient — planned and owned by one coordinator rather than booked as separate services.
Ground transport may be arranged when medically necessary and available under the applicable service terms. For patients whose condition allows it, transfer between hospital and airport can also be completed by medical transport service or personal transport, depending on the treating physicians' recommendations.
The coordinator who owns the case. A delay in one leg is re-planned against the rest of the chain — including re-confirming the receiving bed and the airport slot — rather than allowed to cascade.
Yes. Each handover point is a contact point, and families are told what has happened and what comes next rather than being called only when something changes.
It should, and we chase it where the treating facility is slow to release it. Case notes, imaging and the current medication chart arriving with the patient is what makes the receiving handover useful rather than a starting-from-scratch exercise.
Arrange it before you need it
If a transport is needed now, call the coordination centre. If you are planning ahead, a EuropeCair membership is $600 a year and covers unlimited medically necessary repatriation flights.
