Charity

Blood Bikes Handover Day

Who They Are

With its roots going back over half a century, the concept of a rapid response motorcycle based charity, run by unpaid volunteers has an impressive track record. More than one of the current NABB member groups can proudly demonstrate in excess of three decades of continual service to the NHS and the wider community.

Since its inception as an umbrella organisation in 2008, NABB has successfully promoted and been actively involved in the start up of numerous independent Blood Bike groups across the UK and the Republic of Ireland. With only a handful of areas not yet covered by a Blood Bike group, our vision of providing a ‘coast to coast’ service is rapidly becoming a reality. Although we are all volunteers, we operate to professional standards and comply with current legislation relating to our activities, which includes MHRA / NICE guidelines, UN3373 compliance and GMP training.

During 2013, the 25 NABB member group’s 1,400 advanced qualified volunteer riders responded to around 35,000 requests for rapid transport from 262 hospitals in the UK. These requests were to transport anything from whole blood (red cells), platelets, plasma, serum, surgical instruments to patient’s notes, X-rays, Human donor milk and MRI scans. These requests ranged from urgent (Priority 2), through to emergency (Priority 1) life threatening scenarios.

Although these groups have saved a significant amount of money for the hospitals, they are primarily acknowledged by their client hospitals as providing a professional and high quality service. The fact that they do this free of charge is just the icing on the cake.