How SERV works...

SERV has its main control room in New Malden, Surrey. This is manned every night from 7pm to 6am. The duty riders are also stationed here and some are based at home. The office has two phones installed: one is for the hospitals to contact the office; the other is to contact the duty member if based at home or relevant county if the call is for another area.

The duty members cover one night out of every fourteen, and rotate with other members who are on duty that night as well. This means that one rider is first the next second, etc., then the next time that they are on duty the one who was first is second and so on. This way all duty members are first rider at some time during the rota's cycle. There is also a duty coordinator who deals with any problems that may occur during the week.

Once a hospital has contacted the blood bank and ordered the blood, they contact the office and a rider is dispatched immediately to the blood bank, with an insulated medically approved blood bag. This ensures that the blood or blood product is properly insulated and protected from extremes of temperature. Once the blood product is placed within the bag and sealed it will remain inside until it arrives at the hospital that requested it. If it is for a hospital in another county, then while the main rider leaves to go to the blood bank, the office calls the duty coordinator of the county that covers that particular hospital, who then dispatches their duty rider from his/her home to a transfer point to await the arrival of the main rider.

All riders must follow a set route to each hospital. This is to ensure that should a breakdown occur, a relief rider could be dispatched knowing where the rider should be at any time during the run. This saves time and effort and ensures that there is as little delay to the run as possible.

The number of calls received by the control room averages 3 calls a night, not including transfers. The most calls received in one night were 17.

Over 16,000 runs have been carried out so far.