Dinner Meeting at the Heronston Hotel

Rotary Bridgend welcomed Jason Hall, his daughter Bronwyn and David Atkins from Blood Bikes Wales (BBW) to our October dinner meeting.

After the meal we were shown one of the motorbikes used by BBW, a very powerful and impressive looking 900cc machine.

Jason then gave a presentation about BBW, a subject most members were not aware of. Totally run by volunteers, BBW can trace its roots back to the 1960s and provides a free courier service to the NHS across Wales, transporting blood, platelets, samples for analysis, x-rays and scans, patient notes, medication, medical / surgical instruments and donor human breast milk. These services save the NHS both money and resources, UK blood bikes are estimated to have saved the NHS £1.4 billion.

The Nationwide Association of Blood Bikes was established in 2008 as an over-arching body for such groups and negotiates deals on behalf of its members for items such as bikes and insurance.

BBW was registered as a charity in February 2011 and has 548 volunteer members, of which 306 are riders. BBW also provides urgent “out of hours” motorcycle courier services at weekends and bank holidays, including time-critical sepsis sample delivery services.

In 2024 BBW’s 25 bikes covered some 390,000 miles. The annual running cost for each bike is around £4,900. One example of costs incurred is changing tyres around every 28 days at £230 per pair.

Jason then answered an number of questions before Brian Murrell gave thanks for an excellent and informative presentation.