What goes wrong on medical runs?
Medical courier work is rarely about speed alone. A GP practice sending records to a hospital, a clinic returning equipment, a private hospital moving theatre supplies between sites: in each case the person who booked the run needs to know it arrived, and the person at the other end needs to know it is coming. When something goes missing, the first question is always the same: who had it last?
Without a system, the answer lives in a driver’s memory, a paper docket in a van, or a WhatsApp thread. Paper dockets get wet, lost or signed illegibly. Phone calls to the driver interrupt their driving. And when a client asks for evidence weeks later, you are piecing it together from fragments.
What do your clients ask you for?
- “Is it on its way?” The receiving department wants to know when to expect the delivery so someone is there to take it.
- “Who signed for it?” A name, a role and a signature, not just “delivered”.
- “When exactly?” The time of collection and the time of handover, so their own records line up.
- “Was it actually at our building?” Especially on large hospital sites with several entrances and departments.
- “Can you send us the proof?” Something they can file, ideally a single document.
Track That Ride is built around those five questions. The receiving contact gets a live tracking link. The driver cannot mark the delivery as delivered until they have captured the proof you require. And the record of the whole journey is exported as one PDF.
Which records matter for a medical handover?
Your obligations depend on what you carry and who your client is, so start from your clients’ requirements and the guidance that applies to them. As a working minimum, most medical clients expect a courier to be able to show:
- Collection: the time the item was collected and who handed it over.
- Custody in transit: which driver had it, and where they went.
- Handover: the time, the recipient’s name and role, a signature, and photos of the item and where it was left.
- Location at handover: evidence the driver was at the right address, not around the corner.
- Exceptions: failed attempts and why, with the time and place.
Track That Ride records all five. Arrival at and departure from the pickup, the start of the delivery and the handover are stored with the time, who or what recorded them and the driver’s GPS position, and the route itself is kept for 180 days. At the handover, the driver records the recipient’s name and relationship, takes photos and captures a signature, and you can refuse completion when the driver is further than a set distance from the drop point.
What it does not record is temperature. Medicines distribution under good distribution practice expects suitable storage and transport conditions, and the MHRA’s inspectors look at temperature monitoring. If your clients need a cold chain, you need a validated cool box or data logger; Track That Ride’s record sits alongside it, not in place of it.
Live links for receiving departments
The tracking link is a private web page for one delivery. The receiving contact sees the driver on a map, an arrival time, and updates such as “Your driver has arrived”. It hides phone numbers, email addresses and internal notes, and stops working seven days after the delivery ends. If you have the contact’s email address it is sent when the delivery is booked; otherwise you copy a ready-made message into your usual email or messaging app.
For deliveries that must go to one named person, use a delivery code. The recipient verifies their phone number on the tracking page to see a one-time code and gives it to the driver, who cannot complete the delivery without it.
Tracking your drivers fairly
Live tracking means monitoring your drivers’ location, which brings data protection duties of its own. The Information Commissioner’s Office has guidance on monitoring workers: be clear about why you track, tell drivers how it works, and do not track more than you need. Track That Ride only receives a driver’s position while they have the driver app open; it does not track their phone in the background.
How does it fit an existing operation?
You can create deliveries by hand in the dashboard, or have your booking system create them through the API and receive status changes by webhook. Drivers use the driver web app on their own phones, signed in with their mobile number and a PIN you issue, so there is no hardware to buy. On the Free plan there is no monthly fee and you pay per delivery, which suits a medical round that runs a few times a day.
If you are also delivering prescriptions to patients’ homes, see pharmacy delivery tracking; for specimens between sites, see lab sample courier tracking.