The UK courier and express delivery market was valued at £7.8 billion in 2014. By 2019, this is expected to reach £10.8 billion with around three billion parcels expected to be delivery annually. One of the industries that benefited from this growth is the healthcare sector, which demands an extra level of reliability, speed, and specialist care that typical service providers can’t offer. Here are just some of the ways specialist couriers have to meet the demands of the industry.
Reliability
Just like with any other kind of business, finding a courier with a reliable track record is your first priority. There has been a huge spark in demand for these services over the past few years, but this is not an area where you can afford to trust a new startup in order to save a few pounds. At a minimum, couriers working in the medical industry need to be able to deliver items 24-hours a day, 7 days a week at short notice. While medical centres will try to prepare for emergencies in advance, you never know what’s going to walk through the door next.
Speed
As you might imagine, speed is of the utmost importance in such a fast-paced business. In an industry where people’s lives are potentially on the line, every second counts. In an effort to improve efficiency, TNT have created an integrated network with up to 50% fewer handover points. Typically, an item will be transported to another location where it will remain before it’s scanned into the system and then moved on to another courier who’s responsible for taking it to the next destination. By removing as many of these situations as possible, you can massively increase the overall speed of the transaction.
Control
While speed is paramount in the medical courier industry, all of this effort will be for nothing if the item being transported is no longer suitable for use when it arrives at its destination. This is why it’s so crucial that these companies have the right technologies in place inside their vehicles to tackle every kind of situation. Temperature control is a major challenge in the industry, especially for the transportation of blood samples and organs to be used in life-altering surgeries. Medical supplies like this often require exact temperature control, as if they are kept too warm or too cold they could spoil and be rendered ineffective.
