A plan to use drones to fly items betweens hospitals in south Cumbria has taken a step forward. The Morecambe Bay NHS Trust wants to use the unmanned aircraft to efficiently transport samples and medication across their sites.
Users of the Bay airspace are being consulted on the plan ahead of it being formally submitted to the Civil Aviation Authority.
A statement making up the plans and posted on the website says:
“The geography of Morecambe Bay causes excess journey times between the three hospitals that serve the Bay Community. The A590 is infamous, for it’s hold ups, causing considerable excess time to be taken when moving samples from one hospital to the next.
Morecambe Bay RPAS Transit Route is designed to evaluate the potential performance gains for University Hospitals Morecambe Bay NHS Trust, by flying Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems between the Lancaster Royal Infirmary, Furness General Hospital and Westmorland General Hospital in Kendal.
The aim of these flights is to transfer pathology samples and medications between the hospitals in a more efficient manner, providing optimised healthcare to the Morecambe Bay population.With the relevant approvals in place, we plan to conduct Beyond Visual Line of Sight operations between the above-mentioned sites.”
The health trust wants to use the small aircraft to speed up the transfer of urgent items such as test samples and chemotherapy drugs between sites. It has applied to the Civil Aviation Authority to establish a temporary danger area to use the drones.
Documents submitted under the plan said Electric Aviation Limited would be undertaking a 12-week trial to fly blood plasma, patient records and drugs between Royal Lancaster Infirmary, Westmorland General Hospital and Furness General Hospital.
The drones would fly over ‘coastal/tidal sands, with minimal overflight of urban population, roads, railway infrastructure to affect operations’.
Trust bosses said ‘round robin’ delivery route spends more than seven hours every day driving 321 miles between the hospitals in Barrow, Kendal and Lancaster, with drones able to provide speedier deliveries.
The delivery time could be cut to 28 minutes between the sites from one hour and 21 minutes.
Source: The Mail