Who we are
SERV Sussex is a registered charity (No. 284455) which formed in 1981.
SERV volunteers come from all walks of life and currently range from 21 to over 70 years of age.
What we do
Our volunteers provide free transport services to NHS Trusts in Sussex.
Our volunteers principally provide the service, using their own private vehicles, at their own expense.
Hospitals we regularly serve include;
St. Richard's (Chichester),
Royal Sussex County (Brighton),
Royal Alexandra Children's (Brighton),
Princess Royal (Haywards Heath),
The Conquest (Hastings).
SERV Sussex provides a prompt and reliable means of transporting urgent blood products, X-rays, patient notes, time-critical laboratory samples and test results between hospitals and other medical facilities.
Our core service is available 365 days per year between 19.00 and 06.00 and at weekends and Bank Holidays 24-hour cover is provided. Requests at other times are considered subject to resource availability.
Requests are received via telephone from our client NHS Trusts by a SERV controller. They then liaise, as necessary, with other regions, the National Blood Service and volunteer riders/drivers to get the consignments collected and delivered as efficiently and safely as possible.
Blood and blood products usually originate from the National Blood Service in Tooting, London but we also transfer samples etc to London, and between Sussex Hospital Trusts.
Additional services
Community NursesSERV Sussex volunteers provide home delivery services of consumables and equipment to support the Community Nursing Teams in Crawley, Lancing, Chichester and Brighton. This service is provided during normal working hours. Treatment TrialsSERV Sussex volunteers provide an ad-hoc service to support treatment trials by transferring time-critical samples from residential locations to NHS laboratory facilities. Donor Human MilkFor some years SERV Sussex volunteers have been collecting human milk from donors and transporting it to the milk bank for testing and pasteurisation. Treated donated milk is also delivered to special care baby units and babies requiring it at home. At our HQ in Worthing we have now established the Sussex Donor Human Milk Hub. This will enable us to store frozen donated milk and transport it, in bulk, for testing and pasteurisation thereby reducing the number of journeys necessary. Similarly, treated milk ready for distribution is stored, frozen, at our hub making it more promptly available for end users in Sussex. Donated human milk helps babies in need to get the best start in life and is the ideal food for babies. It contains all the nutrients (at least 400) that a baby needs and contains hormones and disease-fighting compounds which cannot be found in formula milk. In addition, giving breast milk to premature babies protects them against a life-threatening gut infection, necrotising enterocolitis, and helps their development in the long term. The national human milk banking service is not financed by government funds (http://www.ukamb.org/yourmilkbank.html) and SERV Sussex are proud to help support this vital service through our association with the Hearts Milk Bank. |
SERV Sussex has no paid officers and volunteers give their time for free and pay for the fuel and running costs of their vehicle from their own pocket.
SERV Sussex maintain a fleet of charity owned vehicles which are manned by dedicated volunteers who make themselves available for when the number of requests cannot be covered by the scheduled volunteers in their own vehicles.
SERV Sussex welcomes donations to enable us to;
- Fuel and maintain fleet vehicles
- Replace aging vehicles
- Support the communications infrastructure needed to service incoming requests from hospitals
- Support the Donor Human Milk Hub
- Subsidise safety equipment for riders / drivers
- Raise awareness of the service the charity offers to general public and NHS
Should you wish to volunteer some of your time to SERV Sussex then please visit the Join Us page.
If what we do has inspired you to make a donation you can do so via our LocalGiving page or by scanning the QR Code below.
©SERV Sussex 2023. Charity No. 284455