Blood Bike team's urgent 350-mile transfer

Dumfries and Galloway Blood Bikes. Credit: ITV Border

A Dumfries and Galloway team has organised one of the longest Blood Bikes runs in Britain, despite only having been open a couple of months.

The charity transfers blood and medical supplies between hospitals, and the new team based in Dumfries recently received an urgent call to transport blood to Charring Cross Hospital, in London.

The trip required six riders, five different teams, and spanned 350 miles.

Here's how it unfolded:

  • 9:10am call comes in requesting urgent transfer of a sample from Dumfries Hospital to Charring Cross

  • By 10am the Dumfries and Galloway team has arranged a chain of six riders from five different Blood Bikes groups, to relay the package to London

  • The sample is transferred to Blood Bikes Cumbria, in Gretna

  • They pass it on to North West Blood Bikes, at Fulton Services on the M6

  • Shropshire and Staffordshire Blood Bikes take the package on at Keele services on the M6

  • They pass it to SERV OBN at Junction 2 on the M6

  • A second member of that group takes it on at Oxford services on the M40, and delivers it to Charring Cross Hospital in London.

Dumfries and Galloway Blood Bikes confirmed the delivery at 7:35pm - a journey taking more than 10 hours.