SERV Bloodrunners starting in Wiltshire

[ro]

I went to an interesting talk earlier this week about SERV, the blood bike service. It's "a charitable organisation that delivers blood products to the emergency and accident hospitals across Southern England at night free of charge when official Health Service transportation services don't operate". As it's run by volunteers and funded by donations, they've been building up support gradually area by area, so although it's been going for a long time in some places, it's only just starting in Wiltshire in October. The local organiser is Kiel McPhillips and he'd like to hear from anyone interested in helping, either as a rider or in some other way.

I think Kiel is a member of the forum, but hasn't been on for some time.

[Ducatista]

ro - did they mention any required qualifications?

Other groups (like freewheelers) require you to have an advanced motorcycling qualification.
I can't find this info on their website, but would be useful and perhaps stop lots of well meaning but fruitless enquiries.

[Dabz]

it's certainly something that WB can do some fundraising for

[ro]

Advanced qualifications are preferred but not required. Volunteers do an assessment ride first anyway and there's also a training course -- they didn't go in to detail about this, so I don't know if it covers riding skills, but they mentioned sticking to specific routes and special medical handling requirements.

[SupeRDel]

One of my mates in the aircooled RD club is a rider in the Gloucester area. He has too have the Advanced Qualification for insurance purposes and they are tested every couple of years

[RE03]

He has too have the Advanced Qualification for insurance purposes and they are tested every couple of years

I am doing my RoSPA test soon in the hope of doing this in my spare time. The only thing stopping me are the points on my licence as, from the bumf I've read about on other counties requirements, you cant have too many as it's a charitable organisation which doesnt want high premiums :'( but it's def. sommat I'd like to put my skills to

....... just in 4 years >

[SERV_Wiltshire]

Good Afternoon All,

My name is Kiel McPhillips, and I am the county coordinator for SERV Wiltshire. I was a member of the forum under our old charity name of Moonrakers EVS, but registered again to make things simpler!

Right, onto my replies to the above posts:

ro, I'm glad you enjoyed the presentation, and thank you for posting on here to get us more interest.

First of all, the advanced qualification issue: SERV operates differently to other bloodbike groups (the one around Gloucester is a Freewheelers group) in that our riders can use their own bikes to do runs on. We aim to eventually have all riders on a marked bike, but realistically this may take some time.

To ride for us using your own bike, you must be a full motorcycle licence holder; be adequately insured (check with your insurer that they don't forbid charity work); and pass a standards check ride with our standards officer, who is an IAM Advanced Observer. This does not mean that you must reach IAM standards at this stage, just that he is satisfied you are safe and suitable to ride for us.

When it comes to our marked bike, SERV policy is that all riders must show a willingness to undertake advanced training. This may mean you are already qualified in IAM or RoSPA or simply that you are in the process of having advanced training.

On the subject of driving convictions and claims: Each SERV county has it's own policy, and can use discretion. We will look at the type of conviction, length of ban etc, and decide at county committee level whether the rider should be allowed to ride for us. A check ride should highlight any problems with the riding style anyway.

The training course we run is one dictated by the hospital as a mandatory requirement for handling blood products. It is about 2 hours long and involves a multiple choice test at the end.

We are looking to offer riders extra incentive to join us (in case saving the NHS thousands of pounds a year, and potentially saving lives isn't enough), further details of these will follow but may include dealership discounts for members on clothing etc, and subsidised advanced rider training.

If anybody is interested, we have an induction evening on Thursday 14th Oct (next week), starting at 7pm at Salisbury District Hospital. Our marked Pan European will be there, as this is also the official launch of the service in Wiltshire.

You can check out the website (www.serv.org.uk) - the Wiltshire bit of which I will be updating in a moment as suggested above with our rider requirements; e-mail me at wiltshire@serv.org.uk or give us a call on 07005 938 272.

Many thanks!

Kiel
County Coordinator,
SERV Wiltshire

SERV - It's what we do.

[KP]

a well worthy cause, and something i would love to be involved with and support [smiley=thumbsup.gif] [smiley=thumbsup.gif] [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

[SERV_Wiltshire]

Hi Kev,

Are you intending coming over on Thursday? If you want any more information, you can e-mail me at wiltshire@serv.org.uk any time and I'll get back to you asap.

Cheers

Kiel
County Coordinator,
SERV Wiltshire

SERV - It's what we do.

[RE03]

On the subject of driving convictions and claims: Each SERV county has it's own policy, and can use discretion. We will look at the type of conviction, length of ban etc, and decide at county committee level whether the rider should be allowed to ride for us. A check ride should highlight any problems with the riding style anyway.

Hi Kiel,
Thanks for your section above, maybe all is not lost, unfortunately I can't get to the presentation in Salisbury for 7pm but am still very interested.
How do I proceed from here?
Any help very much appreciated
Rob