Medics at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust have launched a pilot scheme where drones will be used to courier blood samples between its hospitals.

The NHS is going to use drones to fly blood samples across London to avoid the traffic.

Drone flights will mean the samples can be transported in a fraction of the time it currently takes couriers via road, officials said.

Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust has launched a pilot scheme that intends to drastically speed up the time taken to move blood from major hospitals in the capital to labs for analysis.

Usually, moving samples between Guy’s Hospital and the lab at St Thomas’ Hospital takes more than half an hour on the road.

However, the same journey can be done in less than two minutes by drone, officials said.

The research team also said there were environmental benefits to the switch in transport methods.

  • iAvicenna@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    2 months ago

    I am glad this came before drones topped with surveillance cameras and tasers. But the latter will come nevertheless, probably first in USA, Russia or China, I reckon.

    • HumanPenguin@feddit.ukEnglish
      2·
      2 months ago

      Won’t make you feel any better.

      But lasers on a drone as a weapon is not yet very practice. Drone would need to be huge. And bullets are just better for the weight.

      Atm, closest we are likely to get is blue whales with lasers on the head.

  • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
    7·
    2 months ago

    I’m not saying that drones aren’t worthwhile, but if this sort of thing becomes common, there are gonna be some noise pollution implications for cities. Like, buildings may need more soundproofing or something.

    • Pennomi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      20·
      2 months ago

      There’s no way a drone like this makes more noise than a truck. At 50 meters up, they’re virtually undetectable.

      • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
        3·
        2 months ago

        https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8198898/

        Available literature suggests that drone noise is substantially more annoying than road traffic or aircraft noise at the same level. This shows that available exposure–response curves, e.g., to predict the probability of high annoyance to aircraft noise [57], are hardly transferable to drone noise.

        I mean, if it doesn’t bother you, maybe no prob.

        • rbesfe@lemmy.caEnglish
          2·
          2 months ago

          at the same level

          I have a hard time believing that the decibel level of a drone will come close to that of road noise. They operate much farther from people than vehicles do.

    • Timecircleline@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      3·
      2 months ago

      Near me drones carrying medical equipment get the same air rights as the air ambulance service. I don’t see everyone getting that same privilege.

    • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      2·
      2 months ago

      you can make quieter drones, especially as the technology gets properly deployed like this and more research goes into it. Plus i’m sure they could come up with better routes that have it fly over areas where the noise affects people less, like fly it in an arc instead of having it hover a set distance from the ground.

    • friend_of_satan@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      This is why I really don’t want flying cars in the way ground cars operate. And sound proof buildings isn’t enough, because I like being outside.