Research project launched into life-saving drones
A new partnership between the Surrey, Sussex and Kent Air Ambulance Charity and the University of Surrey could see drones saving lives
A partnership between the university of Surrey and the Kent Surrey Sussex Air Ambulance Charity could see life-saving drones flying through the sky.
Together, they will test drones delivering defibrillators to patients experiencing an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.
The research project will test how drones can be integrated into the UK’s 999 emergency response system to rapidly deliver defibrillators, with the aim of being quicker than ambulances.
The initiative, which has been funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research, is divided into two sections.
The first will involve researchers developing and refining the drone delivery process through a series of simulations, coordinating 999 call taking, Air Traffic Control, ambulance dispatch and drone operators.
In the second part, interviews will be conducted with a diverse group of people -including out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survivors, family members, responders and members of the public.
Dr Scott Monroe is a lecturer in Paramedic Practice at the University of Surrey and co-lead on the project. He says that public perception is a very important part of the research project.
"There's no point in a drone flying somewhere and delivering a defibrillator if people aren't comfortable or happy to use it.
We're going to be interviewing members of the public, getting their views and opinions and then hopefully using that information to try and make it more acceptable.
So if there's a clear issue that people have, then maybe we can develop the system to try and address that issue and to make it more likely that people are going to use the defibrillators once they've been delivered."
Dr Monroe uses statistics to explain why innovation is needed when it comes to distributing emergency supplies.
"Only one in 10 people survive a cardiac arrest in the UK. But if you get a defibrillator, then your chances of survival can double to triple.
But if you for every minute that you don't have a defibrillator, your chances of survival are reduced by 10%. So even if we can get a defibrillator to someone potentially via a drone to someone a few minutes earlier, that could potentially hugely increase their chances of surviving."
However Dr Monroe added that due to the time it would take in order to make sure that everything is efficient and effective, members of the public shouldn't expect to see life-saving drones overhead anytime soon.