University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust
The private contract, awarded to QE Facilities, now means that volunteer blood bikers covering the same geographical area as will be covered under the new multi-million-pound private
A statement on the QE Facilities website said:
‘After a long tender
‘This new contract will create new opportunities for upwards of forty new positions which include drivers, administration and management. QE Transport will ensure that all specimens are safely transported within strict time constraints, by delivering a caring, efficient and flexible service with patient care in mind at all times.
‘The contract operational delivery is based on a hub and spoke method, resulting in the creation of a new QE Facilities Hub within the Coventry area.
‘This is a fantastic opportunity for QE Facilities to work with a large organisation and to expand on its own specialist transport services. Our dedicated service also provided to the pathology courier services cross the
However, the decision has left Coventry and Warwickshire Blood Bikes volunteers bemused as their free transport service is now, in effect, redundant.
A spokesperson for Warwickshire Blood Bikes said:
‘In 2011 Coventry and Warwickshire Blood Bikes Charity was set up to provide an urgent out of hours transport service for the delivery of blood, spinal fluid, surgical instruments and patient notes amongst other things.
‘More recently we now provide a daily service to the air ambulance of fresh blood for use in some of the most critical emergencies faced by the NHS, and we now collect donated mothers breast milk to give premature babies the best possible chance at life.
‘
‘Warwickshire and Solihull Blood bikes were not consulted on the plans and this move has devastated the charity and its 200 volunteers who give up their time and money to help save lives in the local community.
‘This will affect Rugby St Cross, George Eliot and Warwick Hospital.
‘UHCW allowed the charity to continue fundraising after singing a new service level agreement (SLA) just 10 days after placing this to tender.
‘They allowed us to continue accepting the goodwill donations of the communities of Warwickshire and Solihull trying to future proof the organisation by investing in a new response bike and a 4×4 vehicle to allow us to ensure we could respond in all weathers.
‘The charity has resolved to continue in it’s now limited capacity to serve the air ambulance and the milk runs, but how long we can continue to do that is severe doubt.’
Many people in the NHS have been left dumbfounded as to why a service that had been provided to the Trust in question for free, has now been contracted out to a private company at considerable cost to the taxpayer.
A University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust spokesman said:
“The Coventry and Warwickshire Pathology Service (CWPS) serves 1.6 million patients, four acute hospitals, nine Clinical Commissioning Groups and more than 250 GP practices.
“It runs a transport and logistics service to safely transfer blood samples and other medical items between hospitals and other sites. Demand has grown massively and approximately 10 million samples were handled in 2018/19.
“The transport service was previously delivered by a wide range of suppliers, with some contracted through CWPS and others through third party organisations.
“With complexities increasing and the service potentially expanding to cover areas such as Hereford and Worcester, a decision was made to standardise delivery to ensure current and future needs, as well as stringent UK accreditation requirements, are met and exceeded.
“In line with public sector procurement regulations, we went out to open tender and supplier days were held to inform organisations of our requirements.
“This process has now concluded and the contract awarded to QE Facilities, a wholly owned subsidiary company of Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust. Any profit generated is reinvested in health care, not transferred to independent shareholders.
“Our aim now is to ensure the service continues to go from strength to strength and helps to further enhance the patient experience.”
The spokesman added:
“All previous suppliers – including volunteers from the Warwickshire and Solihull Blood Bikes – have been informed of the changes and thanked for their invaluable contribution.
“We offered to continue utilising Warwickshire and Solihull Blood Bikes until at least June 2019 while we supported them in exploring new opportunities. Since then, representatives have informed us by email of their decision to withdraw the service from 1 April 2019.
“It should be noted that Warwickshire and Solihull Blood Bikes transported approximately 1,000 samples a year – 0.01% of the total received by CWPS. We are immensely grateful to the group for its hard work and support.”
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This. Smacks of a large brown envelope being passed to someone.. what a disgusting move.
There’s always huge kickbacks involved!
If they wanted to spend money, they should have paid the volunteers!
I hope the patients will pressurise the crooked hospital management!
I have the feeling that it might be even more sinister than kickbacks or vested interests. It is just a small part of the Government’s continuing policy of setting up the NHS to fail so that the private sector can pick off services one by one. How do you all feel about the prospect of being treated by the lowest tenderer?
Perhaps if the names of those who made the decisions were made public we could more accurately target our concerns (and scorn and derision}.
what a waste of money
No different to so many other ‘services’ started by voluntary organisations being taken over by the ‘professionals’. An OLD friend started out as a BRCS VAD member, still did event work with them even after the county Ambulance service was formed where he was employed to crew, even many years later as the County Ambulance Service Chief Ambulance Officer he still did BRCS voluntary Ambulance work. Perhaps some of the blood bikers will be recruited, though somehow I doubt it.
Hi It Comes as no surprise to me when Andrew Lansley and his cronies use the term “what’s best for the patient” as cover for their real interests. It has been very clear to some people that privatisation of the NHS has always been number one priority. Recently I have delivered filters for incubators in the early hours from one hospital to another because the stock had run out, just another example of lack of consideration for the patient, who, in this case has yet to begin to live a life. We volunteers, do what we do because we want to, not for any monetary reward whatsoever. Please be ready to ask the questions whenever you see or hear”This is in the best interest of the patient “
now doesn’t that read , back handers are us 🙁 such corruption
10 million samples p.a. and rising for £14 million over 5 years, that’s less than 28p per sample. Perhaps QE Facilities Ltd. should run Royal Mail. I would be surprised if non-profitable trips such as those serviced by Blood Bikes did not suffer.
28p a sample doesn’t sound so bad, but when you consider that just one of our daily scheduled runs often has 200 odd little sample tubes on board…. And we do many such runs daily. It adds up pretty quickly. Our cost to the NHS: free.
check the list of shareholders of QE
The minister of health should revoke payments to this company because they could have saved the money as the voluntary drivers had it covered
you lot need to read the entire post before commenting. As its says.. 0.01% was handled by this charity it might be free but its a drop in the ocean and QE Facilities are now handling 100% and covering a much wider area. while any profits are reinvested in the health care sector. conspiracy-theorists-R-US.com