LOGISTICS
Drones expanding pathology transport options in south-west London
Drone delivery is currently offering improved speed and reliability of NHS tests for patients served by South West London Pathology, with the service provider looking to expand the trial service.
Since February, drones have been picking up samples from the Nelson Health Centre in Raynes Park and delivering them in just over three minutes to the SWLP laboratory at St George’s Hospital in Tooting for testing. The transport pilot by SWLP, in
partnership with medical logistics firm Apian, has seen drones become embedded as an essential part of the SWLP modernisation agenda, currently serving up to 1.8 million patients across south-west London. Now, an expansion is planned for the drone service to serve additional hospital and GP sites. The drones, which are designed
specifically for safe and efficient small package delivery, provide additional logistics resilience, helping ensure rapid, reliable transportation of urgent samples at a time of heightened pressure on NHS services. This is especially vital during the summer months which saw extreme temperatures cause increased disruption on London’s already highly congested roads.
SWLP processes 51 million samples annually for all NHS trusts and GP services in south-west London. Working with British healthcare logistics startup Apian, and using Wing drones, SWLP aims to deploy drones to link sites across its network, including St Helier, Croydon and Kingston hospitals, as well as primary care services. The drones are able to travel between
the two sites in just three minutes – a journey that would otherwise take up to 20 minutes by road, and at busy times almost an hour. That offers an 85% quicker service, supporting faster clinical decision-making and improved patient outcomes. Over 2,000 patients have already benefited from these deliveries. Wider rollout has the potential to save
SWLP money by reducing reliance on vans and motorbikes across its network. Drones are already up to 23% cheaper than existing urgent couriers on some of the routes, with the cost expected to decrease further over time.
The Wing drone being used in southwest London weighs around 5kg and can carry packages of around 1kg, with space for up to 12 samples.
Faster, cheaper, greener Simon Brewer, Managing Director of SWLP said: “We are investing heavily in automation and digitisation, introducing other cuting-edge technologies to improve diagnostic precision and speed across the network. But the impact of this investment will be restricted if samples are still geting stuck on roads. Drones help us move samples faster, cheaper and greener, and are now a core consideration of our logistics plans. “We asked Apian to prove that
drones could offer an improved service over what we had before; there were so many barriers in the way, but each was overcome and our questions were answered,” Simon continues. “The route between Nelson Health Centre and St George’s was chosen as that area can
October 2026
WWW.PATHOLOGYINPRACTICE.COM 49
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56
