10 August 2021
As Britain’s busiest blood bike service we are celebrating 100,000 mercy missions - covering more than 1.5 million miles (to the moon and back three times) and saving the NHS more than £5.5 million over the last nine and a half years. North West Blood Bikes, which covers Lancashire and South Lake District, marked the milestone with a routine mission.
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26 May 2020
The unpaid volunteer motorcycle riders and car drivers of North West Blood Bikes Lancs and Lakes have continued to operate through the COVID19 pandemic. This is despite having to shield some members from the virus for personal or age-related risk of exposure. The charity has been able to meet the request of the NHS to continue providing the level of safe, free, professional volunteer transport our healthcare customers have come to expect and rely upon outside normal work hours.
read full story28 December 2016
As many of you were just finishing work for the Christmas Holidays, our volunteers were just starting the 104 hour Christmas cover.
The holiday weekend kicked off early with a….
read full story15 August 2015
In the very early hours of Saturday 15th August 2015, just 39 months after we went live, Julie McCorkindale (Controller) took our 15,000th call asking if we could transport some urgent samples from Ormskirk to Southport Path Lab. Dave Meredith (veteran rider) took the call and did the job. This is absolutely amazing and all down to the dedication of all our Controllers, Riders and Members and a testament to the need for Blood Bikes Nationwide. Well done everyone.
read full story09 April 2015
In the evening of Wednesday 8th April 2015, with a new Controller, Jo Kenyon-Swift in charge, and veteran Rider Peter Haworth, we reached 12,000 call outs within our first 3 years of operating.
read full story23 February 2015
Dateline; 23rd February 2015 in the early hours of Monday morning we successfully completed 11,000 call-outs, 1,000 of which were completed from the middle of January to date, despite some atrocious weather, well done everyone. We have asked several hospitals to see if they can tighten up the number of call outs, in other words to see if those items not desperately urgent can wait a while to see if there is anything else and this has just started …
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Another milestone, on 4th January 2015, 33 months after we began we have successfully completed 10,000 runs, over 7,000 in the last 12 months alone.
read full story16 December 2014
Tuesday 9th December 2014, our Chairman received a request from the Pathology Department at Royal Preston Hospital to transport an urgent blood sample to Cardiff for urgent analysis of a specialist test.
Time was critical and transporting the sample by taxi would have taken significantly longer than using a motorbike and would have incurred significant costs.
read full story04 October 2014
Friday 3rd October 2014, exactly 29 months 1 day after we began operating we reached a milestone having carried out 8,000 call-out runs, 2656 since 2nd May 2014 (5 months).
This amazing figure is down solely to generosity of all our volunteers; the Controllers for being there either all day or all night; the riders for going out in all weathers, day & night; our fundraisers for helping us afford to do it and our general members for spreading the word. We have an amazing charity with amazing people. If you think you can help, come and join us, just click the “CONTACT” button on the website front page.
read full story16 September 2014
Monday evening 15th September 2014, the analysis machine breaks down at Burnley General Hospital and a request from East lancashire Hospital Trust for us to help out by running a continuous service between Burnley and Royal Blackburn Hospital’s Path lab.
Our new controller, Christine, on her very first shift must have gulped and thought “What have I let myself in for?” but was reassured by her hubby Ed, himself a volunteer rider. Chris made the right phone calls and got everything sorted in no time. The duty rider accepted the task without question and another committed rider came on to help.
Considering we look after 12 hospitals in Lancashire and south Cumbria, a controller can take several calls all at once, but a steady nerve and knowing who to contact when help is required is all it takes. Sounds easy, but once initial panic has died down, it is, and there is always someone to help.
“What a fantastic group of dedicated people we have at NWBB Lancs & Lakes”, said the Chairman.
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