Driven by a desire to help save young lives, two teams of swimmers will attempt to complete one of the most gruelling feats of human endeavour when they swim the English Channel in aid of the Childrens Air Ambulance.

Nearly 146 years after Captain Matthew Webb became the first person to complete the swim from Dover to Calais, three/four teams of six will navigate the 22.5-mile stretch as a relay in an effort to raise vital funds for the national lifesaving charity.

The swimmers will become part of a worldwide family of people who have conquered the famed stretch of water, home to the worlds busiest shipping lanes, but more than that they will help to keep families together through supporting the critical work of the Childrens Air Ambulance.

The Childrens Air Ambulance is a national service which is changing the face of paediatric and neonatal care through the high-speed transfer of critically ill babies and children - flying them from one hospital to another for specialist care.

Two clinically designed helicopters, based at Doncaster and Oxford, provide flying intensive care units and work with 10 NHS paediatric retrieval teams across the UK. If a child is too sick to fly then the Childrens Air Ambulance can fly a specialist team directly to them.

All transfers of critically ill babies and children carry an inherent risk the longer a child is out of the hospital, the greater that risk but the aircrafts ability to fly approximately four times faster than land ambulance minimises travel times and risk.