UK: Skyports Drone Services, EMED Group Carry Out Successful Medical Courier Trial

Sky­ports Drone Ser­vices and EMED Group, one of the largest UK health­care logis­tic providers to the NHS, have suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed “a proof-of-con­cept project test aimed at bring­ing addi­tion­al inno­va­tion and sus­tain­abil­i­ty ben­e­fits to med­ical couri­er ser­vices,” reports a press release.

Launched in June, the four-week tri­al was run with East Suf­folk and North Essex NHS Foun­da­tion Trust (ESNEFT), an exist­ing cus­tomer of EMED. The project suc­cess­ful­ly deliv­ered over 400 pathol­o­gy sam­ples between two ESNEFT sites, “high­light­ing how reg­u­lar and recur­ring drone oper­a­tions,” explains the release, “can sup­port tra­di­tion­al med­ical couri­er ser­vices to fur­ther improve ser­vices for patients and health­care pro­fes­sion­als.”

Craig Smith, Group CEO of EMED, com­ment­ed, “This project is an impor­tant mile­stone high­light­ing inno­v­a­tive prac­tices in the med­ical couri­er space. As a health­care busi­ness, we are dri­ven by our mis­sion to improve the well­be­ing of the com­mu­ni­ties we serve.”

He con­tin­ued, “This ini­tia­tive is a great exam­ple of this. Not only does it pro­vide tan­gi­ble envi­ron­men­tal ben­e­fits, but it also ensures that vital pathol­o­gy sam­ples and med­ical sup­plies are quick­ly and effec­tive­ly trans­port­ed between points of care with no risk to delays we often expe­ri­ence on the road net­work. All of this ulti­mate­ly ensures our com­mu­ni­ties are that lit­tle bit health­i­er and those with med­ical needs are diag­nosed more rapid­ly.”

Alex Brown, Direc­tor of Sky­ports Drone Ser­vices added, “We’re at a real­ly impor­tant stage in the scal­ing of med­ical drone logis­tics. Projects such as this one with EMED are help­ing pave the way for per­ma­nent oper­a­tions by demon­strat­ing just how safe, ben­e­fi­cial and effec­tive drone ser­vices are – and the ease with which they can be imple­ment­ed. Each deliv­ery we com­plete ensures that a patient receives the care they need that bit quick­er. At scale, the impact is trans­for­ma­tion­al.”

Deliv­er­ies are being con­duct­ed using Sky­ports Swoop Aero Kook­abur­ra III air­craft, a fixed wing air­craft with a 3kg pay­load. The drone is a tried and test­ed plat­form, which Sky­ports Drone Ser­vices has used on count­less med­ical deliv­ery mis­sions, fly­ing tens of thou­sands of kilo­me­tres to date.

Shel­ley Gar­rey, Ser­vice Lead at Sup­port Ser­vices at East Suf­folk and North Essex NHS Foun­da­tion Trust, remarked, “This is a real­ly excit­ing step in look­ing at new tech­nolo­gies to help deliv­er health­care faster. Using drones mean patients will receive their results quick­er while sav­ing time and resources. This is an excit­ing pilot project and we hope we can look to expand in the future.”

Alex Brown

Back­ground

When com­pared to a stan­dard diesel van (Vaux­hall Com­bo 1.5l diesel), dri­ving 77,080 miles across just four loca­tions in one year, the sav­ing against a sin­gle-drone oper­a­tion is 22.72 tonnes of CO2 emis­sions per annum.

The drone flies at approx­i­mate­ly 100 metres above ground lev­el to min­imise impact on oth­er air­space users. It oper­ates in seg­re­gat­ed air­space, i.e., safe cor­ri­dors for the drone to fly through.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://skyportsdroneservices.com

https://www.emedgroup.co.uk

(Pics: Sky­ports)