Plans for a new air ambulance service to cover Sussex have been announced.

The Kent Air Ambulance Trust has launched a cash appeal to operate a second helicopter that will also cover Sussex.

The Sussex Police helicopter will continue as the main air response in the county while the Kent craft will provide a back-up service when needed.

Paul Sutton, Sussex Ambulance chief executive, said: "Sussex already receives excellent service from the joint police-ambulance helicopter based at Shoreham airport and we work together with Kent Air Ambulance, as well as the coastguard helicopter and even one from London, when the need arises.

"The existing Kent Air Ambulance already covers parts of East Sussex and the Sussex Police helicopter covers areas of West Kent.

"Any additional resource in respect of air support to help a range of patients, including the most critically injured, is to be welcomed."

Kent air ambulance is paid for entirely by donations and the trust has now launched an appeal to raise £100,000 to fund the expansion. The trust wants to put a doctor on board with paramedics and place the new helicopter on the Surrey-Sussex border by next year.

David Philpott, Kent Air Ambulance chief executive, said: "This is about saving lives.

"It is important we take A&E departments to the patient rather than the patient to A&E. It seems a great pity that people just a few minutes away in flying time across the county border cannot be helped by us."

The Kent service, which began in 1989, costs £1.5 million a year and has attended about 10,000 call-outs. It is estimated to have saved at least 400 lives and attends an average of four life-threatening incidents a day from its base at Marden.

Mr Philpott said A&E departments were under threat across the country and people were having to travel longer distances to reach them. He added: "With a doctor on board we could really do an awful lot to save lives in those vital minutes after a severe trauma or medical emergency."

The Sussex helicopter has a paramedic on board at all times and equipment carried mirrors that of a land ambulance.

Inspector Cliff Gale, of the Sussex Police Air Operations Unit, said: "I acknowledge the good work done by the Kent trust but would not wish the public of Sussex to think they do not currently have an air ambulance service."