SERV Training - What it takes to be a blood biker

Posted: 14 Dec 2013

Today’s Bennetts Biking Dreams 12 Dreams of Christmas winner was Neil Boast, who has taken delivery of a brand new iPad Air and Drift HD camera. The reason Neil wanted these two fancy pieces of technology was to aid him in his volunteer role training SERV blood bikers in Suffolk and Cambridge.

SERV provides the facilities and resources to deliver a vital Rapid Response Medical Transport service transporting things such as blood, samples, vaccines, notes, x-rays, scans and donor breast milk to hospitals out of hours, completely free of charge to the NHS.

Boast, an ex-Police motorcyclist takes prospective Blood Bikers out for a ride, filming their riding and gives them a running commentary providing tips along the way. We got in touch with him to ask exactly what he’s looking for when he’s training prospective volunteers.

“The volunteers have to be checked before they are let out on the road to do what is a really important job” Neil explains.

“We need to make sure they’re a safe rider. SERV put the prospective volunteers in touch with me and I arrange to take them out. I’ve always filmed their footage on USB sticks but now I’ll be able to take them through the footage on the iPad after the ride. I’ll show them what they’re doing well and highlight areas for improvement.

“All this contributes to making sure those who go on to be SERV riders are safe on the road, after all you are quite clearly a blood biker, you’re wearing hi-vis. Though people often assume that because you’re wearing hi-vis that you’re slow. We aren’t slow but we are safe. The SERV guys get the stuff to hospitals pretty quickly, quicker than they would in a car!”

Neil plans to use his iPad and Drift HD camera to share his advanced motorcycle training with other riders too.

“We’re soon to set up a group called “Ex-Job” where former Police motorcyclists share what we’ve learned in training with other bikers. What many people don’t realise is that Police motorcyclists are also trained to the highest class in driving Police cars too – we know our stuff!”

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