IOC fellow, Absolutely’s CEO, Stuart Godman, delivers the details on a critical and urgent road logistics, courier delivery from London to the Isle of Wight for Wednesday (5th May 2020)

We’ve seen an increase in medical deliveries throughout our organisation through this challenging time. Patients, simply can’t get to pharmacies and hospitals to collect their all-important medications. We work closely with one Trust that rely on us to deliver time critical cancer treatments, and have done for the last few years. However, we have never seen the volumes we have throughout this pandemic. Our contact at the Trust reached out to us at the start of lockdown and asked if we would be able to cope and support them even more than usual. It was a simple answer for everyone “yes, Absolutely.” I knew that no matter how far or difficult, we would find a way for their patients to get their meds through our GDP compliant delivery service. This became even more evident when we were asked late on Tuesday evening to deliver urgent medications to one of their patients on the Isle of White for collection and delivery the very next day!

Absolutely knew just the person to help with this urgent and very time critical delivery. It required a temperature-controlled vehicle and temperature mapping throughout its journey to the patient.

Tim Stewart has been working as a self-employed courier with Absolutely for over 6 years, and within their temperature-controlled division for over 2. We spoke with Tim and he told us;

As soon as I heard that our client needed urgent support I was committed and ready to go. I didn’t think twice and it honestly didn’t bother me that I had to do a 200-mile round trip, and get a ferry! That’s a first for me, but I didn’t care, the need of the client and more importantly the sick patient needed our help, I wasn’t going to let them down. We are working in unprecedented times, and we all need to pull together to support and care as much as we can for one another.

Tim’s selflessness really showed, especially when the patient emailed Absolutely direct to thank Tim for helping out at such a tough time; “Hi, I have just received my refrigerated medication on the Isle of Wight…Tim the driver was so helpful, our property is difficult to find and he was so helpful and cheerful, what a wonderful service, I have been let down by other courier services in the past and so was half expecting the medication not to arrive on the island, it often happens that no ferry is booked by the courier. Thank you.” Maria

Stuart Godman, wrapped up our interview expressing his thanks and gratitude to Tim for going above and beyond for this patient, and wishes Maria a speedy recovery.