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Silicon Valley-based Zipline will deliver medical supplies by drone to the UK’s NHS in a pioneering initiative aimed at cutting costs and improving services for hundreds of thousands of patients.
The world’s largest drone logistics service will deliver medical and surgical supplies to more than 30 NHS hospitals and clinics in the north of England in the second half of next year. Fixed-wing drones can fly up to 130 miles and parachute their cargo onto a landing strip.
Zipline was launched earlier this year in partnership with Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, which is responsible for providing care to more than 500,000 people across Northumberland and North Tyneside, and British logistics company Apean. It is based on drone tests conducted.
The trust’s outgoing chief executive, Sir James Mackie, said the partnership was “an opportunity to seek to improve the experience of the hundreds of thousands of people we serve”. “We hope this will reduce appointment cancellations and supply chain complexity while saving money for the healthcare system.” trust Last week, the company announced the appointment of Birge Bartoli to replace Mackie.
Zipline says its drones can be in the air within two minutes of receiving a request, and delivery times can be several hours, particularly in areas served by the Northumbria Trust, one of the largest geographically. This will enable more effective use of inventory. In the UK NHS.
The San Francisco-based Zipline is awaiting final regulatory approval for the service from the Civil Aviation Authority.
The partnership to provide the drone service comes as the NHS looks for ways to cut costs and improve services as it faces its harshest winter yet, with statistics showing more people are waiting for non-emergency appointments. This amounts to approximately 7.7 million people.
Andrew Edmunds, the trust’s director of innovation, said the trust was aware of potential noise and safety concerns.
Appian’s test program in February and May initially drew criticism over the closure of local airspace, with pilots and runway owners warning that “temporary hazardous areas” would affect operations, and Appian prompted revisions to the plan.
“Here we go back to doing things by the book, following the process and being fully compliant with regulations,” Edmunds said. “It’s natural to have questions about new technology,” he added.
Zipline’s entry into the UK is the latest expansion for the US drone delivery company, whose partners include Cleveland Clinic, Intermountain Healthcare and Walmart.
The company’s latest round of funding this year reportedly valued it at $4.2 billion, with backers including Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Baillie Gifford, Temasek, and Fidelity.
Zipline CEO Keller Rinaudo Clifton said there was an “explosion of demand,” particularly in the United States, for the next-generation platform, which uses “droids” attached to drones that hover at about 300 feet. ” was pointed out. We deliver packages to an area as small as your front door. Zipline plans to bring its services to the UK at a later stage.
In 2023, the company received a permit from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration for “beyond visual line of sight” flights, waiving the requirement for humans on the ground to monitor each flight.
Rinaudo Kufton said the zipline helped ease the health system’s transition to an automated instant drone delivery process, due in part to the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The company currently serves 3,000 hospitals and medical facilities around the world and has delivered more than 14 million vaccines over the past few years, he added. It recently completed 60 million miles of autonomous flight with zero safety incidents. “And all this using autonomous, zero-emissions aircraft that are 10 times faster and half the cost.”
Zipline was founded in 2014 and currently operates in several African countries, the United States, and Japan. Apian was founded by a former NHS doctor and runs a platform for the NHS to order from his Zipline.
With additional reporting by Sarah Neville