The blood samples were flown between two facilities in Northumberland, a journey which took just over an hour and shaved seven minutes off the longer route by road.
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00:00Blood supplies have been flown between two hospitals by drone in a trial the company
00:07behind the scheme hopes will be rolled out across the country.
00:11Five identical blood packs made the 68-kilometre journey from the Wandsbeck hospital to Annick
00:16Infirmary and back again in the northern county of Northumberland.
00:21The trial flight could offer the solution to how to deliver vital blood to hospitals
00:25quickly and easily.
00:28In this particular trial we flew 10 packs of red blood cells with NHS blood and transplant
00:34and drove 10 identical packs and essentially on the other end analysed those in the laboratory
00:40and proved that there was no difference between the two packs, which means that delivering
00:45it by drone is a safe method of transport.
00:47Around 5,000 bags of blood are needed every day in the UK for transfusions and operations
00:53but donors and patients are often miles apart.
00:56The trials are aimed at getting approval to use drone transportation in the UK.
01:01This could be really a great breakthrough for trying to get blood across areas where
01:08it's difficult to get through, so thinking about in the middle of London with traffic
01:12actually using a drone would be much quicker.
01:16While the drone trials have so far been well received, a full scale rollout of the scheme
01:20would need to be approved by the Civil Aviation Authority.
01:26For more information visit www.fema.gov