Congratulations to our friends and colleagues SERV Wessex – The Blood Runners, who have been honoured with the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service.
SERV Wessex are a voluntary organisation who coordinate the pickup of blood products from University Hospital Southampton and deliver to our Airbase in Thruxton. Using sophisticated temperature controlled packaging, which keeps the blood safe to use, every 48 hours the blood bikers carry a fresh box of two units of blood to our Critical Care Teams.
SERV Wessex also provides an out-of-hours rapid response service to NHS hospitals, delivering blood products, samples, medication, medical equipment and human donor milk during the times when other transport options to the NHS may be limited, including every night, weekends, and public holidays.
SERV Wessex receiving a cash grant at our Airbase in February 2020
Since January 2020 their volunteers covered over 266,000 miles on duty and completed over 4000 jobs. The service is provided free by volunteers and as the charity only has a small fleet, 70% of the mileage completed was by volunteers using their own vehicles and paying all their own costs.
This prestigious National Honour recognises outstanding contributions made to local communities by groups voluntarily devoting their time for the benefit of others. It sets the national benchmark for excellence in volunteering, with the work of those awarded being judged of the highest standard.
Thank you to everyone at SERV Wessex for the unwavering support over the years.
