Meet the researchers behind the lifesaving drones

Did you know that there are more than 40,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in the UK each year, but less than 10 per cent of people survive? Warwick researchers teamed up with the Welsh Ambulance Services University NHS Trust and SkyBound (autonomous drone specialists) to find out if we can save more people with drone-delivered defibrillators.

Chief Investigator Dr Christopher Smith (Warwick Clinical Trials Unit), told us:

“We have successfully demonstrated that drones can safely fly long distances with a defibrillator attached and maintain real-time communications with emergency services during the 999 call. We are in a position where we could operationalise this system and use it for real emergencies across the UK soon.”

We spoke to Christopher to find out what sparked his interest in this area, how Warwick supported his research and what the next steps are for the project.

Dr Christopher Smith

What sparked your interest in this work?

"I’ve had an interest in cardiac arrest since I taught on a peer-led CPR/defibrillator course at University. Through this, I was introduced to resuscitation experts (one of whom is now Dean of the Medical School - Professor Gavin Perkins) and to the importance of doing research in resuscitation practice and implementation. That early exposure has guided much of the rest of my career.

Community interventions are the ones that make the biggest difference to someone’s survival chances in cardiac arrest. This includes CPR and defibrillation, both of which can be done by members of the public before the ambulance arrives. The use of drones may be one way of getting a defibrillator to the scene in a timely fashion and, if implemented correctly, could make a substantial difference to patient outcomes."

How has Warwick (and the people) helped you to make progress?

"I received funding when I started at Warwick Clinical Trials Unit for one day a week to develop an NIHR Doctoral Research Fellowship proposal. Since then, I have completed my Doctoral Research Fellow, gained my PhD and gone out to complete a four-year NIHR Clinical Lectureship. I am now funded using Research Capacity Funding. I am part of the EPPiC Research Group at Warwick CTU and receive mentorship / support from clinical academics with interests in critical care, emergency medicine and prehospital medicine."

What are the next steps for this work and how can Warwick colleagues get involved?

"Next steps are to develop the technology and communications further and to see if this can be operationalised at scale in the ambulance service and if we can overcome the current regulatory hurdles to unmanned flight!

We are looking at funding streams to achieve this at the moment. We are always open to ideas and potential collaboration with people interested in drones and in cardiac arrest research in general.

The EPPiC research team have collaborated on projects with Warwick Business School, Warwick Department of Linguistics (internally) and with a number of ambulance services and commercial partners (externally) already in our research and certainly would welcome future opportunities for multi-disciplinary work."