State-of-the art vehicle rollout

National health and social care transport provider ERS Medical has expanded its fleet with 8 new medical courier vehicles that feature unique dual-temperature controls. Rolled out to service the pharmacy contract for Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust, the vehicles are designed to safely transport both, pharmacy and pathology items at the specified temperatures without compromising on the integrity of the cold chain.

The new vehicles have a temperature-controlled area that is set at an ambient temperature of 17 degrees Celsius, but it can be adjusted to go as low as zero degrees and as high as 25 degrees. Additionally, this section has an integral fridge unit (set between 2 and 8 degrees) to transport pathology and pharmacy items at a different, lower temperature from the rest of the rear cab, which is suitable for the transportation of vaccines, certain drugs and pathology samples. The entire rear cab itself can also be set to a lower temperature specified by the customer to transport larger items such as bigger boxes of vaccines or medicines. This means that multiple categories of medical courier items can be safely and efficiently transported on one trip instead of repeat journeys.

ERS Medical’s vehicles are a new type of medical courier transport solution. Generally, medical courier vehicles are suitable for pharmacy and pathology items that need to be transported at ambient temperatures between 15-25 degrees. However, if these vehicles need to transport medicines or pathology samples at lower temperatures, they tend to use cool bags and ice packs. This doesn’t fully protect the items from high external temperatures and any delays due to traffic or rerouting. It can also be time-consuming to repackage items into cool bags. Moreover, if the medicines and samples are spoiled due to being stored or transported at incorrect temperatures, they will need to be requested again, leading to delays.

Gary Brown, ERS Medical’s Senior Operations Manager for the South explains:
“Our new medical courier vehicles provide the industry with a dual temperature solution. They have in-built features to easily set and monitor the temperature at a click of a button. The dashboard of each vehicle has a neat temperature gauge that allows our drivers to check and adjust the temperature of the fridge unit. The vehicles also have a cloud-based system running the temperature gauge, which is set to constantly monitor the vehicle’s temperature and send a notification if the temperature drops below a specified range. NHS and pharmacy clients can request this information to give an added layer of reassurance that their items are being transported safely and at the correct temperatures.”

The new medical courier vehicles join ERS Medical’s existing fleet of 500 specialist vehicles including stretcher ambulances with a bariatric variant, seated ambulances, secure patient (covert) vehicles, High Dependency Unit (HDU) ambulances and wheelchair access vehicles (WAVs).