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The Drone Girl
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Busy London airspace now home to medical drones flying over people (and historic landmarks)
- The implementation of a medical drone service between Guy's Hospital and St. Thomas' Hospital in London by Wing, Apian, and the NHS has brought on-demand medical drone delivery service to one of Europe's busiest and most complicated air spaces.
- The two facilities are less than two miles apart, but it can take 30 minutes or more for blood samples to be transported between them on a motorbike or van through the busy London traffic.
- With this medical drone delivery service, it can now be done in under three minutes, which can save lives for patients waiting to undergo surgery or facing complications.
- Navigating drones in dense, historic airspace is a difficult task. In London's case, NATS handles the air traffic management through a public-private partnership in a regulated and restricted airspace.
- The possibility of safely integrating drone deliveries even over populated areas is a major step toward urban air mobility.
- For now, only 10 on-demand medical deliveries are allowed per day which is less compared to other Wing's operations with Walmart where multiple drone deliveries per hour are made.
- The project is currently a trial running for six months and if it proves to be successful, it has the potential to become a model for drone delivery of other medical supplies, not just within London but across the NHS
- Apian, a healthcare logistics start-up founded by NHS doctors, has already trialed similar drone deliveries in rural areas.
- The implementation of this drone delivery service could lead to an NHS-wide drone network that would make healthcare deliveries as seamless and immediate as ordering from a favorite delivery app.
- Currently, the drones are used to transport blood samples, but as the drone network grows there is potential to use drones for blood, PPE, or medication delivery in a more automated and scalable way. As the economy becomes increasingly service-based, this marks a major shift in how drone services will transform urban infrastructure
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