BLOOD BIKES Scotland has been gifted £5,000 from the Fife Health Board Endowment Fund as a "thank you" for their support during the COVID-19 crisis.

The charity provides a free transportation service for a number of health boards in Scotland including NHS Fife, delivering small urgent items.

Using a fleet of 12 motorbikes and a sponsored car, it offers its services free to the NHS as a means of ‘giving something back’.

It's funded entirely through donations and needs to raise £3,500 each month to cover running costs alone.

Rt Hon Tricia Marwick, who is the chair of the Endowment Fund’s board of trustees, said: "Blood Bikes Scotland have assisted NHS Fife for a number of years, and since the start of the pandemic their support has proven invaluable.

"The role they play in transporting samples is not only helping to increase testing capacity, it is also enabling many people to receive their results much earlier than they ordinarily would.

“The efforts of Blood Bikes Scotland in helping NHS Fife to respond to COVID-19 cannot be underestimated and has provided a direct benefit for patients."

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Blood Bikes Scotland provided a weekend service to NHS Fife totalling 64 hours per month.

The group is now supporting NHS Fife seven days a week and their support has increased 700 per cent since the start of the pandemic.

The charity’s primary support over recent months has been to do two-hourly shuttle runs between NHS Fife’s drive-through testing facility at Cameron Hospital and the board’s microbiology laboratory at the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy to supplement their own transport.

Blood Bikes Scotland have also begun collecting samples from local care homes to speed up the testing process and help reduce spread of the virus among some of Fife’s most vulnerable residents.

This contribution toward Blood Bikes Scotland was made possible following a £500,000 donation to the Endowment Fund from an anonymous donor last month.

Chairman of Blood Bikes Scotland, John Baxter, said: "We’re 100 per cent self-funded so we have to bring in our own money through grants, sponsorship, events or even shaking a tin in a supermarket, and our potential to fundraise has changed dramatically with recent events.

“This is a huge contribution to us and it will help us to run the bikes for an extended period whilst the pandemic is continuing.

"We would like to thank the Fife Endowment Fund for this very generous donation.”