Recognising Another Emergency Service

After starting works in the east of England on behalf of Highways England, it became apparent that the local blood bike groups covering the area were not receiving important diversion and closure information. As the blood bike groups are registered charities, they do not receive the information via the NHS or ambulance trusts that cover the regions they work within. This crucial knowledge is necessary to helping them deliver their life critical supplies such as blood, plasma and breast milk.

Once this had been discovered, a workshop was setup where representatives from GRAHAM, Highways England, HW Martins and the local blood bike groups from Suffolk, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire got together to solve the communications issues and to discuss better ways of working with one another when closures are in place.

At the workshop, it was agreed that the traffic management contractors would now be able to easily identify the bikes via their uniforms and could escort them safely through the site when required. A Memorandum of Understanding was established which now recognises the Blood Bikes as one of the emergency services that should always be contacted alongside the traditional police, ambulance and fire services. This has now been added to our own company Communications Plan template to ensure that they are never missed when planning future works around the UK.

There are plans to roll this out amongst other contractors and the blood bike groups covering all of the regions within the UK, to help ensure they receive relevant road information and have ease of access through sites when possible.