Project Seraph – Proof of Concept for Transportation of Medical Supplies (Kenya)

The MOD has moved away from the traditional ‘Golden Ten Minutes’ and ‘Golden Hour’ for provision of initial treatment and definitive care for sick and injured personnel, as current and future operations focus more on smaller, lighter formations operating in more austere environments. The MOD currently relies on a logistical supply chain utilising various modes of transport – land, sea, air - and whilst there has been a lot of work conducted on the use of drones, their use within Defence in a medical context has not been fully examined. There are many civilian UAV companies both in the UK and overseas that operate in the field of medical supplies (including delivering blood & blood products). This project seeks to understand whether utilisation of a commercial UAV company, with accompanying logistical, hardware, software and personnel support, is feasible in deployed areas to deliver potentially lifesaving medication/blood & blood products (and other cold chain items) to medics and troops in austere environments who may be at extended reach causing potential delays to treatment or evacuation. It could also allow the medic to carry less as standard or free up the requirement for cold chain storage.    jHub Med aims to demonstrate the utility of contracting a commercial UAV company to deliver UAV hardware and support services in 1 overseas location, in order to show the flexibility of the service.   Enabling functions of Defence to support this project include proactive personnel, commercial UAV companies with processes already in place and access and permissions within deployed areas. The Authority wishes to provide funding to support an overseas demonstration of a FULL SYSTEM capability demonstration phase, over the next 4 months. This demonstration of the system will be a physically deployed overseas resupply that will take place in Kenya.