The Trust has replaced all of its pathology vehicles with electric cars, as part of its ambition to help ‘make Birmingham a cleaner city’.

The cars, which are part of the Trusts wider net carbon reduction strategy, are used to collect and deliver blood samples to the Pathology Team.

(Above) One of the new electric cars at ROH

The new cars, the Nissan Leaf, have replaced older diesel models. The Nissan Leaf was awarded ‘Car of the Year’ in the 2019 Stuff Gadget Awards by Stuff Magazine, the world’s best-selling gadget magazine. They have a high-capacity storage battery unit, because of how much mileage they are required to do.


(Above) The Pod Point charging points on-site at ROH

The vehicles are used for the specimen and blood collection for the Trust, which is a 24/7 service. There are two Pod Point charging points located outside of the Estates building, opposite the hospital’s Main Entrance and more are planned in the future. They are currently charged out-of-hours and last an estimated 200 miles when fully charged.

Scheduled collections and drop-offs are between ROH and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Edgbaston but the cars occasionally travel to Birmingham Children’s Hospital, which is in the Clean Air Zone. The Estates Team also support ad-hoc requests to other NHS providers and requests from departments such as Theatres, to deliver and collect equipment. They are hoping to create a more permanent logistics provision to support the wider system in the future.