YFW Blood Bikes (Charity 299434)

Blood Bike Volunteers since 1978

Freewheelers Emergency Voluntary Service (Yeovil), known as “YFW Blood Bikes” and “Yeovil Freewheelers”, is a group of emergency volunteer bikers operating out of Yeovil, Dorchester, Taunton and Wincanton Hospitals. The demand for our services is still growing after 40 years supporting the NHS. Last year we made over 1,800 out-of-hours deliveries, carrying blood, platelets, blood and tissue samples, medication, breast milk, documents, CT scans, and equipment to hospitals, hospices, and nursing homes as well as private addresses across much of Somerset and all of Dorset, saving the NHS well over £200,000 while easing patients’ suffering and helping to save lives.

We were founded in 1978 by Mr. Cecil Turner and are the oldest operational blood bike group in the country. We are a registered charity and members of NABB – the Nationwide Association of Blood Bikes (NABB). We currently operate a fleet of nine motorcycles, stationed at hospitals in Yeovil, Dorchester, Musgrove Park Hospital and Wincanton. The service is provided completely free of charge to the NHS and all members of YFW Blood Bikes are UNPAID volunteers. We save the NHS a large amount of money but more importantly, we ensure blood and other essential supplies are available at hospitals when needed. We enable sample analysis to be carried out more quickly at specialist laboratories around the country which leads to earlier patient diagnosis, treatment, and recovery.

We have never had financial support from national or local government nor from the hospitals that task us, neither do we charge for any services. All our members are volunteers receiving no remuneration or expenses at all. We operate all year round, riding in all weathers whenever we are needed, 24hrs a day, entirely free of charge. Increasingly, our retired and shift working members are called on to make emergency runs during the day to fetch a rare medicine, take a sample to a specialist laboratory for analysis or deliver equipment to an operating theatre.

All our riders are qualified to IAM or RoSPA advanced standards and every rider is re-assessed to that standard annually. All riders are police checked, have passed NHS induction and are trained to NHS delivery standards for blood, pathology samples, and pharmaceuticals.

Fund-raising by the group is always a challenge but over the last 40 years individual members of the local community, as well as local businesses, have been incredibly generous with their donations, clearly demonstrating how they value the service and are willing to contribute to keeping it going. We run nine bikes, each costing approx £5,000 to fuel and maintain each year. Since the NHS has come to rely on us, it is essential that our fundraising keeps pace with their demands.