Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) plans to try using drones to fly chemotherapy drugs to cancer patients in England, in a bid to cut delivery times from four hours to 30 minutes.

Drones will transport doses from the pharmacy at Portsmouth Hospital University NHS Trust to St Mary’s Hospital on the Isle of Wight, where staff will collect and distribute them.

Announcing the major trial on the health service’s 74th birthday, NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard said cancer patients in England would be the first in the world to benefit from the new deliveries, in partnership with tech company Apian.

The drones are set to make their first flight in the coming weeks and, if successful, will lead to drones being used for similar drops elsewhere.

(Source: Euronews, July 6 – 2022)