UK: World First Medical Drone Delivery Service To Be Launched Between Cornwall and Isles of Scilly

Open Skies Net­work and Corn­wall Part­ner­ship NHS Foun­da­tion Trust have announced a pio­neer­ing agree­ment for the adop­tion of an NHS med­ical drone deliv­ery ser­vice in Corn­wall and the Isles of Scil­ly.

Start­ing in 2025, this mul­ti-year part­ner­ship will sup­port the adop­tion of car­go drones. Ini­tial­ly, this will include deliv­ery of things like pathol­o­gy sam­ples and med­ical sup­plies across the region. In the future, there will be dis­cus­sions to explore the poten­tial to use pilot­ed elec­tric air­craft for med­ical trans­port.

Gareth What­more, CEO at Open Skies Net­work, said: “From drone deliv­er­ies of test­ing kits and PPE dur­ing Covid, to the first long-haul and intra-island med­ical drone oper­a­tions, our pre­vi­ous work in Corn­wall has led UK capa­bil­i­ty for the NHS when it comes to drone-enabled health­care logis­tics. 

“This agree­ment — the first of its kind in the NHS — will see Open Skies Net­work and Corn­wall Part­ner­ship NHS Foun­da­tion Trust work­ing togeth­er to adopt a mod­el for drone-enabled, dig­i­tal­ly inte­grat­ed health and care logis­tics. This sup­ports deliv­ery of the 10-year Health Plan to move care out of hos­pi­tals into com­mu­ni­ties and make bet­ter use of tech­nol­o­gy to help health­care teams focus on pre­vent­ing sick­ness, not just treat­ing it. 

Geo­graph­ic iso­la­tion and weath­er depen­den­cy present unique chal­lenges when it comes to deliv­er­ing equi­table access to health­care across Corn­wall and the Isles of Scil­ly. This agree­ment will be a boost to the exist­ing trans­port infra­struc­ture and the deliv­ery of urgent diag­nos­tics, med­ica­tions, and spe­cial­ist inter­ven­tions.

Informed by work pre­vi­ous­ly car­ried out as part of the UK Research and Inno­va­tion (UKRI) Future Flight Chal­lenge pro­gramme, the land­mark agree­ment will see Open Skies Net­work for­malise take-off and land­ing loca­tions and infra­struc­ture for active med­ical drone use, in Corn­wall and the Isles of Scil­ly.

It will also pave the way for future adop­tion of pilot­ed elec­tric air­craft, cre­at­ing a blue­print for a future-ready health and care sys­tem that can be repli­cat­ed across urban, rur­al and island com­mu­ni­ties around the world.

Deb­bie Richards, Chief Exec­u­tive at Corn­wall Part­ner­ship NHS Foun­da­tion Trust, said: “With 30 miles of water between the Isles of Scil­ly and the main­land, our region’s geog­ra­phy dic­tates that we do things dif­fer­ent­ly. Our work with Open Skies Net­work is all about adopt­ing new tech­nol­o­gy and help­ing the NHS to realise the ben­e­fits of drone tech­nol­o­gy and dig­i­tal inte­gra­tion to deliv­er improved patient care and respon­sive­ness.

“Whether it is same-day pre­scrip­tions and med­ical sam­ple deliv­er­ies or sup­port­ing clin­i­cal teams to pro­vide care clos­er to patients’ homes, reduc­ing health­care-relat­ed trav­el, our goal is to ensure time­ly access to care and resources, regard­less of geog­ra­phy.”

Incor­po­rat­ing drone tech­nolo­gies into health­care logis­tics sup­ports a range of use cas­es that will improve out­comes for patients and clin­i­cians alike, from deliv­er­ing path lab sam­ples more quick­ly and speed­ing up diag­noses, to improv­ing acute and spe­cial­ist care pro­vi­sion. It not only sup­ports the NHS’s Net Zero ambi­tions but also offers real-world pro­duc­tiv­i­ty sav­ings.

Coun­cil­lor Avril Mum­ford, Lead Mem­ber for Adults and Pub­lic Health at the Coun­cil for the Isles of Scil­ly, added: “This is excit­ing news for every­one on the islands, as our com­mu­ni­ty often faces sig­nif­i­cant time and cost bar­ri­ers when access­ing health and care ser­vices. 

“Recog­ni­tion of our geo­graph­ic chal­lenges has led to some real­ly inno­v­a­tive health and care ser­vice deliv­ery over recent years, with our inte­grat­ed neigh­bour­hood teams already recog­nised as nation­al trail­blaz­ers for their approach to the inte­gra­tion of health and social care. 

“We look for­ward to sup­port­ing our NHS and Open Skies Net­work col­leagues to fur­ther future-proof health and care ser­vices in the region to reduce the need to trav­el from the islands to the main­land for health­care over time.”

The next stage of this work will focus on robust val­i­da­tion, includ­ing infra­struc­ture and safe­ty pro­to­cols. This will involve val­i­da­tion flights to ensure the right drones are select­ed to safe­ly deliv­er sup­plies and meet the needs of the local com­mu­ni­ty.

Pic­tured L‑R: Heli­pad at The Roy­al Corn­wall Hos­pi­tal (Truro), and St Mary’s Hos­pi­tal on the Isles of Scil­ly.