The air ambulance service that covers Suffolk, Norfolk and Essex has received more than £80,000 in donations from its Christmas appeal.

The East Anglian Air Ambulance (EAAA) launched the Gift of Life campaign in mid-November to help it continue its operations throughout the region.

As well as the cash, supporters have also w,ritten more than 1,000 messages of support to medics working for the charity.

EAAA requires more than £15million every year to deliver 24-hour critical care to patients.

Matthew Jones, chief executive of EAAA, said: "To receive so many donations in the build up to Christmas and over 1,000 hand-written messages of support for our teams has given us all an enormous boost at the end of what has been a very busy but very memorable year for EAAA.

"Our heartfelt thanks go to our very generous supporters who have made so much possible; in 2021 we opened our new state-of-the-art headquarters in Norwich, realised our goal of flying 24/7, started carrying blood on board every mission, held our very first pre-hospital emergency medicine research conference and much, much more.

"All of us are incredibly proud of everything EAAA has achieved in 2021 for our patients and for our community and I would like to take this moment to extend the most enormous thank you to each and every one of our supporters who keep us flying and saving lives."