Skyports to support UK’s COVID-19 response by leading drone delivery trial

Sky­ports has joined forces with Thales to con­duct a two-week tri­al for the NHS in Scot­land, by using drones to trans­port urgent med­ical car­go to iso­lat­ed com­mu­ni­ties as part of its response to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

The tri­al is backed by Argyll and Bute Health and Social Care Part­ner­ship (HSCP) – the inte­grat­ed part­ner­ship of NHS High­land and Argyll and Bute Coun­cil direct­ed by the local Inte­gra­tion Joint Board –  and aims to prove the fea­si­bil­i­ty of deliv­er­ing urgent med­ical car­go, such as COVID-19 test kits and Per­son­al Pro­tec­tive Equip­ment (PPE), between remote med­ical facil­i­ties by deliv­ery drone.

Based at Lorn and Islands Hos­pi­tal in Oban, the tri­al will con­sist of two-way flights between the hos­pi­tal and Mull and Iona Com­mu­ni­ty Hos­pi­tal in Craignure 10 miles (16km) away on the Isle of Mull.

Dun­can Walk­er, CEO of Sky­ports, said: “Deliv­ery drones are a fast and reli­able solu­tion for vital med­ical sup­plies.  Sky­ports is proud to assist the NHS in Scot­land with their COVID-19 response, help­ing to pro­vide the essen­tial health­care that peo­ple need in hard­er-to-reach areas. 

“Our tri­al in Argyll and Bute pro­vides an impor­tant short-term response to the cur­rent pan­dem­ic and lays the foun­da­tions from which to grow a per­ma­nent drone deliv­ery oper­a­tion across a net­work of health­care facil­i­ties around the coun­try.”

Cur­rent­ly, the major­i­ty of med­ical sup­plies and spec­i­mens are trans­port­ed between the lab­o­ra­to­ry at Lorn and Islands Hos­pi­tal, sur­round­ing gen­er­al prac­ti­tion­ers’ surg­eries and oth­er health­care set­tings by sea and road, a long and com­pli­cat­ed jour­ney.

This ser­vice will see deliv­ery times cut from up to 6 hours one-way by ground trans­port and fer­ry to around 15 min­utes, on-demand, by drone, bring­ing con­sid­er­able sav­ings in terms of time and resource, as well as con­tribut­ing to keep­ing front line med­ical and deliv­ery per­son­nel safe.

Sky­ports will con­duct the tri­al and oper­ate the flights using deliv­ery drones sup­plied by unmanned air­craft-mak­er Wing­copter. These tri­al flights will be planned through Thales’ lead­ing drone oper­a­tions man­age­ment plat­form, SOARIZON, which offers dig­i­tal tools to main­tain com­pli­ant and safe drone fly­ing oper­a­tions. 

Alex Cress­well, CEO of Thales UK, said of the project: “Thales’s tech­nolo­gies are play­ing a cru­cial part in the response to COVID-19 — both glob­al­ly and here in the UK. This tri­al demon­strates the pos­i­tive role that unmanned tech­nol­o­gy can play in our soci­ety and rep­re­sents a land­mark step to accel­er­ate its adop­tion.

“We look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to work col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly with indus­try part­ners, reg­u­la­tors and gov­ern­ment to estab­lish the UK as a world leader in this excit­ing new indus­try.”

The two-week tri­al rep­re­sents a cru­cial mile­stone for unmanned avi­a­tion in the UK.  Under cur­rent rules, drones must always be flown with­in visu­al line of sight of the remote pilot. To under­take these more extend­ed flights, the project team has been in close con­sul­ta­tion with the CAA.

Through this tri­al, the alliance aims to prove the long-term, sus­tain­able via­bil­i­ty of such ser­vices; bring­ing togeth­er reg­u­la­tion, gov­ern­ment and indus­try to unlock the trans­for­ma­tion­al poten­tial of drones for soci­ety when used in a safe, secure and con­trolled way.

Once the tri­al has been suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed, the team will con­tin­ue to work close­ly with the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (CAA) and the NHS to make ser­vices avail­able in Scot­land and across the UK to pro­vide access to this inno­v­a­tive tech­nol­o­gy to a wide range of organ­i­sa­tions, in par­tic­u­lar a num­ber of oth­er NHS Boards and Trusts.

Joan­na Mac­don­ald, Chief Offi­cer for Argyll and Bute Health and Social Care Part­ner­ship, added: “I am delight­ed that Argyll and Bute Health and Social Care Part­ner­ship is again at the fore­front in Scot­land using new tech­nolo­gies to ben­e­fit our patients

“The use of drones pro­vides real oppor­tu­ni­ties to improve ser­vices and will help enable quick­er diag­no­sis for our patients. We are excit­ed to be work­ing with Sky­ports in the design of this new ser­vice.”