Funds raised by the Friends of DCH have been used to build a new garage at Dorset County Hospital (DCH) in Dorchester. This garage will house the hospital’s new Blood Bikes, both of which were donated earlier this year. The Blood Bikes, which were previously kept at the Fire Station in Poundbury, now have a permanent home at the hospital. This will make it much easier for Dorset’s Blood Bikers to access the bikes and get vital resources to patients as quickly as possible.
A Blood Biker is a highly trained, highly skilled motorcyclist who provides a rapid response courier service carrying urgent medical supplies such as blood, x-rays, samples and drugs between healthcare facilities across the UK. The service is completely free of charge to the NHS as all the riders are unpaid volunteers. Dorset’s blood bike service is run by the Yeovil Freewheelers, a charity set up forty years ago to operate a blood bike service across Somerset.
Dorset currently has around ten blood bike volunteers, all of whom are fully trained. One of these volunteers is Simon Gudgeon, owner of Sculpture by the Lakes, who donated one of the bikes. The other was donated by Mark Masons Dorset.
You can hear an interview with Simon which was featured in this edition of Ridgeway Magazine
Simon said “Yeovil Freewheelers (YFW) Blood Bikes are now able to offer a 24 hour a day, 365 days a year service for Dorset County Hospital. This has been made possible by the generous donation of a garage from the Friends of DCH and the two bikes donated by Mark Master Masons and Sculpture by the Lakes. YFW Blood Bikes is totally run by volunteers and we have to do all our own fund-raising as well to keep the bikes running so if you feel you can help please get in touch, you can even donate a gallon of fuel through our website www.yfwbloodbikes.org”
Chairman of the Friends of DCH, Barbara Purnell, said “The blood bikes provide a vital service to patients and hospitals in Dorset by transferring blood supplies between locations in emergency situations and having a base in Dorchester could only be of enormous benefit. So when we were approached by Blood Bikes and told of their hopes of setting up a garage at the Dorset County Hospital we were delighted to be able to help.”
