Lunchtime Meeting - 12.45pm - Speaker Sandy Harper

Sue's speaker today will be Sandy Harper from Shropshire and Staffordshire Blood Bikes.

Oswestry Rotary Club were recently treated to a very interesting talk about Shropshire, Staffordshire and Cheshire Blood Bikes given by Sandy Harper, one of the founder members of this charity.

Becoming operational  in 2014, with an initial 40 members using 2 second-hand motor bikes, SSC Blood Bikes now has 229 members including 169 riders using 12 home office approved Yamaha bikes specially commissioned with their own special Blood Bikes livery with two Blood or Milk transit boxes.  Through its dedicated team of controllers, riders and fundraisers, the service delivers not only blood, but also urgently needed medical items such as frozen breast milk (for premature babies) and microbiological samples every day of the year.

Remarkably, Blood Bikes is staffed entirely by volunteers funded by public donations, saving hundreds of thousands of pounds carrying out 7,200 deliveries on behalf of the NHS over the 4 years it has been in existence.  The SSC Blood Bikes riders work closely with hospitals, including the RSH, Princess Royal in Telford, The RJAH, the Countess of Chester and even as far as Birmingham, when the item needed is very specialised. 

There are volunteer controllers and riders on call 24 hours a day, typically on 12-hour shifts.  Thanks to trackers on the bikes, the controllers know exactly where the bikes are at any time.  The area covered is sectioned into 4 groups and a rider from each group is always on standby duty 24/7.

Training is given to the volunteers, including an advanced riding test for the riders, but no matter how urgent the situation they do not break national speed limits, go through red traffic lights or use blue lights.

It costs around £70,000 a year to keep this fleet of bikes in tip-top condition - just consider the fuel bills, repairs, insurance, tyres etc (and multiply it by 12) which has to be raised by the fund-raisers EVERY YEAR.  By speaking to groups such as Rotary, SSCBB seek to raise awareness and donations.  They also hold supermarket collection days etc, welcome donations, seek grants and are active on social media.

Seen here on the bike 'Millie Bea', purchased new through a donation of £10,000 from the Morrison's Foundation and named, through public competition, after a young cerebral palsy sufferer from Staffs, Sandy has been riding motorbikes since he was about 12 years old (although not on the road) and is now 67 and retired from full time work. "Being a member of the Blood Bike group is, I feel, a great privilege to be able to both continue to enjoy my love of motorcycling and put something back into the community that I live in." Sandy says.

As well as money, Blood Bikes needs more volunteers, whether as riders, controllers or fund-raisers.  Because of the higher insurance premiums for younger people, riders need to be over 30 and men and women are equally welcome.  If you are interested, please contact them via their FaceBook page www.facebook.com/StaffordshireBloodBikes/

One of the A&E nurses who has personally experienced the excellent, life-saving work of Blood Bikes summed up what it means to her: “I want everyone to know who these people are – they are the unseen emergency service”.