BARBARA Osborne knows only too well the difference that minutes can make when speeding a severely-ill child to hospital.

With faster transport she believes years of heartache could have been avoided after her daughter Catriona was struck down by life-threatening meningitis.

So she has wholeheartedly thrown her support behind the launch of a new service, the Children’s Air Ambulance, which promises to greatly reduce the time it takes for sick children in Oxfordshire to receive vital treatment.

The new helicopter will be specially adapted to transport critically-ill children between hospitals, and with safety restraints, paediatric specialists and intensive care facilities on board.

The charity-funded aircraft will be based at Coventry Airport from next year and can reach anywhere in the UK within two hours, taking 20 minutes to reach Oxford.

Mrs Osborne, who runs Barretts Storage in Chalgrove with her husband Iain, said the service would have made all the difference during an incident seven years ago, when her 13-year-old daughter needed to be moved across the country.

Instead the teenager had to make the 40-mile journey from Stoke Mandeville Hospital, in Aylesbury, to St Mary’s Hospital, in Westminster, in an ambulance.

She said: “As a parent, each minute when your child is ill feels like a lifetime.

“So many thoughts are going through your head – will she survive? Is there anything I could have done? Why is it taking them so long?”

The total transfer time between the two hospitals by roadwas four hours and by the time Catriona arrived in London, septicemia had begun to set in, turning her eyelids, elbows and toes black.

She recovered following treatment, but Catriona was later diagnosed with ME – a condition associated with meningitis that causes chronic fatigue, depression and other symptoms.

Mrs Osborne said: “With meningitis, every minute counts.

“And that’s why I’m supporting the Children’s Air Ambulance. I’m convinced that if the transfer between the two hospitals had been quicker, Catriona would not have suffered from these after-effects and would have gone on to make a much better recovery from her illness.”

The fundraising manager for the Children’s Air Ambulance, Nicole Rolfe, said the new service was crucial, because within the UK specialist resources for treating children are concentrated in only a few hospitals.

She added: “We have an Augusta Westland AW109S, which is the fastest commercial helicopter available for this role and can take off and land from most landing sites.”

The launch happened on Monday, November 26 at Eynsham Hall.