At the Club’s March meeting Lin Holder, the Club’s newest member, gave a very informative and interesting talk about SERV Kent Bloodrunners. Lin is one of the volunteer controllers for the Kent area.
SERV stands for Service by Emergency Response Volunteers and SERV Kent began in 1993. It is a charity providing a courier service 24hours a day, 365days of the year using around 150 volunteer bike riders, car drivers and controllers.
Lin explained that although the groups are known as Bloodrunners they in fact do a great deal more than delivering blood and blood products to NHS hospitals. The volunteers collect samples and deliver them to the appropriate laboratories and testing facilities. They also collect and deliver urgent supplies between hospitals.
The role of SERV Kent includes support for Demelza and Ellenor hospices, with collection and delivery of drugs between sites and of equipment to patients’ homes.
Other services involve the collection and delivery of donated breast milk, and support for home dialysis and transplant patients.
Since 2013 SERV Kent has supported Kent Surrey and Sussex Air Ambulance with deliveries of blood to their base at Redhill.
Lin said that in the past year SERV Kent has carried out over 4500 NHS blood & sample transfers, 776 air ambulance support journeys, 222 milk runs, 385 home dialysis deliveries, 143 transplant medication journeys and 15 hospice support calls.
As a registered charity, SERV Kent provides all these services free of charge to the NHS.
They certainly are the “unseen emergency service”.
To find out more please visit www.servkent.co.uk