0s! Get a load of this infomercial!
E
arly on,
I got the job of NABB
‘Development Officer’ which meant
travelling the UK in my ‘spare time’ to talk to
groups of interested bikers, mainly IAM or
RoSPA related clubs. (If you Google ‘John
Stepney blood bike’ you will get a flavour of
how we roamed the countryside, hopefully
inspiring like minded bikers to step up to the
plate.) Although the concept of blood bikes
goes back over half a century to the early 60s,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itU4oIa
seFc at the time I got involved in starting our
local group, there were only around 5
operational blood bike groups in the UK,
mainly in the south. Today there are over 30
groups! In 2013, the (then) 24 NABB member
blood bike groups responded to around
35,000 requests from over 250 NHS
hospitals using their 1,450 advanced
qualified volunteers. Many of the groups
operate a dedicated bikes only policy,
whereby the bikes are supplied and
maintained by the charity. At the moment,
the combined fleet of dedicated vehicles
stands at around 140 vehicles, mainly bikes,
but there also a few 4x4s in the pool to get us
across the occasional adverse weather
situation.