Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they plan to take to support NHS trusts and integrated care systems to trial and adopt drone technology for time-sensitive healthcare logistics, such as blood samples.

The Government is committed to innovation in drones and other growth sectors. Work is ongoing across the Government, including between the Department of Health and Social Care and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), to support the safe and effective introduction of drones into healthcare logistics. The Future of Flight Programme, led by the Department for Transport and taking place across the Government, will deliver routine beyond visual line of sight (BVLS) drone use in the United Kingdom by 2027. As part of this programme, the Department for Transport, the Department of Health and Social Care, and the CAA continue to work closely together to unlock BVLS drone use cases for the National Health Service.

To enable NHS trusts and integrated care systems to trial and adopt drones, the Department of Health and Social Care works with organisations from across the Government such as Innovate UK, who have funded 20 projects exploring the use of drone technology to support a range of health and social care applications, with a total investment exceeding £20 million.

As part of the 2025/26 Future of Flight Programme, delivered by the Department for Transport, two new projects, namely Dragon’s Heart and London Health Bridge Growth, have been announced to advance the use of drones in healthcare logistics. Together, these projects will receive funding of £820,000.

The Department of Health and Social Care continuously reviews the available evidence surrounding the use of drones in medical logistics and is supportive of new trials to further build this evidence base, in particular regarding the benefits of the use of drones to deliver urgent medical supplies in remote and urban areas.

Enabling drones to safely operate to trial NHS services currently requires airspace segregation to ensure the safety of other crewed aircraft. This is a complex process, and the CAA and Department for Transport are working to simplify it as part of the Future of Flight Programme and the Airspace Modernisation Strategy while we work towards full airspace integration. Progress on this work is monitored through the Future of Flight Industry Group which is co-chaired by the Minister for Aviation, Maritime and Security.