During COVID-19, it was anticipated that an increasing number of the patients would be referred for ECMO and intensive care support. We predicted a surge in ECMO retrieval activity that would require a larger number of medical personnel to staff ICUs and the ECMO team. Our normal 3-person ECMO retrieval team would be insufficient to cope with the increasing demand during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was not practical in terms of both resources and time to recruit and train new staff. Therefore, we reconfigured our ECMO retrieval team to included cardiac surgeons. We paired the most experienced surgical consultant with a senior anaesthetic fellow (trainee) and the less experienced surgical consultants with an anaesthetic consultant. This plan fulfilled the obligation to provide a consultant grade team leader and an airway-trained doctor. Our goal was to report our initial experience with this expanded ECMO retrieval team in the eastern region of the UK during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.