An estimated one million patient samples are transported by pneumatic tube systems in British hospitals every week. Ensuring that these samples and other critical items arrive at their intended destination quickly and without fail is the job of the companies that supply and install these increasingly complex networks of plastic tubes. Here, Tom Hughes, managing director of Aerocom (UK), explains how pneumatic tube systems work, and how they have become the ‘invisible heroes’ behind driving efficiencies in the nation’s health service.
Communication technologies like mobile phones and Wi-Fi have catapulted us into an era where today's reality is often even more incredible than yesterday's science fiction. However, when it comes to the transportation of physical objects, we are clearly a long way from replicating the type of teleportation machines synonymous with the Star Trek franchise.
So, how does a modern-day hospital cope with the accurate and timely transfer of thousands of critical supplies — such as blood samples, patient specimens, and pharmaceuticals — across its sprawling campus? The answer lies in a technology that can be traced back around 200 years. Pneumatic tube systems (PTS) exist in almost every major UK hospital, utilising the same combination of vacuum and air pressure that was first commercially used by the postal system in the mid-19th Century. Nowadays, a major NHS hospital PTS requires up to 5 kms of precision-extruded pneumatic tubing to transport sealed products throughout its network of floors, departments, and buildings.
Aerocom (UK), one of the UK's largest suppliers and installers of pneumatic tube systems to healthcare organisations, has to date installed such systems in well over 100 NHS and private hospitals in the UK. The company's most recent project involved the upgrade and replacement of the entire network of pneumatic tube systems across Bristol Royal Infirmary's city centre hospital complex.
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