Award-winning logistics business Pallet-Track is offering its services to deliver vital medicines and equipment to the NHS as part of a major national initiative.
The Wolverhampton-based business, which has 90-plus freight business members across the UK, has joined forces with the eight major national pallet networks that make up the Association of Pallet Networks (APN) to offer their services for the express distribution of critical emergency and food supplies.
Members are already playing their part with Birmingham-based Mobile People Powered Logistics, one of the biggest inputters in the Pallet-Track network, delivering thousands of pieces of vital medical equipment to all of the Government’s emergency Nightingale hospitals.
The business, based in the second city’s Castle Vale area, also provided a vehicle free of charge to deliver crowd barriers from Villa Park to help maintain essential social distancing at Birmingham Children’s Hospital.
PGS Global Logistics, also based in Birmingham, delivered hospital furniture and essential medical equipment into the NHS Nightingale Hospital in Birmingham while another member, Aztek Logistics in Hertfordshire, delivered 60-tonnes of specialist flooring into the Nightingale Hospitals at the NEC and at ExCel in London’s Docklands, which was built in nine days and is now ready to take its first COVID-19 patients.
Wimbledon-based ELB Partners has also delivered robust over-bed lighting for COVID-19 patients at the Nightingale Hospitals at the Exhibition and Conference Centre in Bristol and in Birmingham. One of ELB’s most established customers, Batt Cables, delivered vital electrical cable into the 4,000-bed ExCel Hospital, which was completed last week.
Founder and managing director of Pallet-Track Nigel Parkes said:
“The NHS is doing a fantastic job in difficult circumstances and if we can help expedite the supply of vital medicines and personal protection equipment, we, along with the other APN members, are here to help the national effort.
“Some of our members and their customers are already playing a role. For example, PGS Global Logistics, which already has strong links to the NHS and Aztec Logistics, which has delivered tonnes of specialist flooring through a dedicated customer into the Nightingale Hospitals, which are being set up across the country.
“All are doing what they can and are willing to do more as part of the effort to help the NHS defeat coronavirus while the rest of the UK stays safe at home – but we are more than ready to do more if required.”
Between them, the APN member businesses have 30,000 employees, more than 750 depots, and offer 100 per cent national coverage by postcode.
Collectively they delivered 26 million pallets of goods in 2019 and are one of the most efficient forms of freight distribution enabling overnight deliveries of consignments of any size from a single pallet upwards, anywhere in the UK.
Regional members collect freight from their local area, and transport it to the most appropriate regional hub, where it is reloaded onto vehicles returning to its destination area.
This model is particularly important at a time when many users of essential goods are requiring small frequent deliveries of vital goods with many drop points within a given locality.
APN chairman Paul Sanders said:
“We are uniquely placed to offer our services to ensure that emergency supplies coming from anywhere and destined for any corner of the UK, can be delivered quickly, safely and reliably to support critical services, whether in rural or urban settings.”
For more information about Pallet-Track and its members, visit www.pallet-track.co.uk.
