Tony Taft reports:-
Our talk today was entitled “South West Blood Bikes.” The presentation was somewhat unusual in that we had two people giving the talk, which is very rare for us.
Our talkers were Steve Jones, a former police officer, and Rob Springthorpe who once worked for British Telecom.
Steve and Rob are volunteers for the blood bike service, and are doing an incredible job working much longer hours now than they did in their former employment.
With the aid of a visual presentation we were shown a film of how the blood bike service operates, and lots of slides with facts and figures, the service is not funded by the NHS or money from the government, it relies on money from events to help raise the funds.
The motor bikes are all bought by the volunteer riders, and looking at their fantastic bikes covered with technical equipment they were not cheap, some of the bikes were once owned by the police, any maintenance has to be organised by the volunteer riders themselves, Rob does some of the maintenance or repairs for the team.
Steve said they have 96 volunteers across three regional operating teams, North, West, and East areas.
Steve told us the sort of items that they carry,( this is a list ) Whole Blood, Blood Components, Pathology Samples, Test Samples, Stem Cells, Urgent Medication, Medical Equipment, Urgently needed medical notes, Donor Breast Milk for premature babies.
The blood bike team consists of both male and female volunteers, Steve’s wife complained that she hardly ever see’s him now that he is doing this work, so she solved the issue by learning to ride a motor bike and joining the service herself.
Steve and Rob said that it is rare that they get follow up information about the patients they have helped.
At the end of the meeting many questions were asked which goes to show how much our members enjoyed this talk, Steve invited any club member to go outside to examine their bikes and even sit on one if they wanted to and have photos taken.
We all give a huge thank you to Steve and Rob for coming to talk to us all.
Paignton Probus Club 