Thursday February 15, 2007

Blood Bike Calls Wednesday

The Freewheelers blood bike service does not officially start until 7:00pm. However, today I received the first call for help at 4:10pm. It was an urgent request for patient notes to be transferred from the Royal United Hospital in Bath to Chippenham Hospital. With early requests like this we tell the hospital that we don't start until 7:00pm and suggest they arrange alternative transport if the job cannot wait. In this case the hospital was happy to wait until 7:00pm so I sent an SMS message to the East bike rider to say that he had a job waiting for him when he came on duty. To my amazement he came back to me and said he would do the job immediately. In the middle of winter all our weekday deliveries are made in the dark, so he got a ride out in the sunshine for a change.

The rest of the evening was what I would describe as average. Here are the details of what we did:

• North Bike: A delivery of patient notes from Weston-super-Mare to Southmead Hospital in Bristol, followed by another delivery of notes from Frenchay NHS money saved: £65. Time on the road: 2h00m

• East Bike: The aforementioned delivery from Bath to Chippenham, followed later in the evening by an urgent delivery of a drug chart from Bath to Melksham. NHS money saved: £55. Time on the road: 4h15m

• West Bike: An urgent delivery between two mental health units in Taunton and Bridgwater after a patient was transferred without his drugs. Followed by the urgent delivery of blood samples from the mental health unit in Bridgwater for analysis at the pathology labs in Taunton. NHS money saved: £50. Time on the road: 1h50m.

So the scores on the doors for tonight are £170 saved for the NHS and riders on the road for 8 hours. I am probably tempting fate here, but so far this week nobody has been called out after midnight. I am most grateful for this because my wife gets really grumpy if a phone call wakes her in the middle of the night!

Technorati tags: Volunteer, Motorcycle Emergency

Posted by mikebelch ( Feb 15 2007, 08:09:51 AM GMT ) Permalink Comments [0]