Starting today, Sunday, and for the next 7 days I will be on duty on the Freewheelers EVS blood bike. For those unfamiliar with what I do, Freewheelers EVS is a charity based in the South West of England that provides an out-of-hours emergency courier service to local hospitals. At weekends and evenings during the week we carry blood, blood samples, drugs, x-rays, patient notes, or anything else that a hospital needs to get from A to B in a hurry. We do this on a fleet of specially adapted motorcycles equipped with blue lights, sirens and high visibility markings. I am a volunteer rider for Freewheelers and also their webmaster. I am going to blog the whole week on the bike so people can get an idea of what a typical week is like. Unfortunately there isn't a typical week so I may have 20 calls or I may have just 5. Let's wait and see...
One thing that I get asked a lot by people is "Why does a charity do work that the government should fund?". That's a great question because in the UK the National Health Service (NHS) ensures that all medical care is free of charge and is funded by the government. Unfortunately the financial demands of the NHS are so great that were it to be given unrestricted funding my personal income tax rate would be 50% instead of 40%. Certain areas of healthcare are therefore rationed. One rather short sighted example is transport. Hospitals can transfer items between each other during office hours only using the NHS' own courier service. One could argue that this is rather shortsighted as people get sick at all times.
So this is where Freewheelers EVS comes in. We are entirely funded by public donations. The money we raise is used to purchase, fuel, maintain and insure a fleet of motorcycles. We reckon to need around £20,000 (US$37,000) per year to keep running. Our riders and telephone coordinators volunteer their time freely. If we didn't exist then the hospitals would do one of two things: don't ship the item and potentially compromise patient care or use an alternative such as a taxi. The latter is often the solution but taxis cost money. If every journey that Freewheelers EVS does was instead done by taxi then the cost to the NHS each year would be around £60,000 (US$112,000). So it could be argued that we save the public a great deal of money that would otherwise have to be raised through taxation. However, it isn't as simple as that because you can't get a taxi on demand. At certain times - especially when pubs and clubs are closing on a Friday or Saturday night - you can't get a taxi for love nor money. We are available on-demand (assuming our riders aren't already out on a delivery). If the NHS were to try to provide a service to match ours it would face much higher costs. It would need to lease 3 bikes, employ at least 11 staff to ride, dispatch and manage the service and would face a huge overhead in administration costs - an area where the NHS fails spectacularly according to its critics. I reckon it would cost the NHS £350,000 (US$660,000) every year to provide a service equivalent to the one that we provide for just £20,000.
So back to the question about charities providing a service that should be paid for by government. In an ideal world the NHS would not need to be surrounded by numerous charities. However, the fact that it is and that those charities are supported by happy and willing volunteers means that the saving to the public purse helps keep us all from paying much much higher taxes. In my opinion that is a good thing.
