The free of charge courier service provide by our registered charity's volunteer staff saves the NHS up to £150,000 each year.

There are two different ways to estimate the savings that we offer. The first is to calculate the cost of a delivery were it to be made by a taxi. The second is to calculate what it would cost the NHS to set up an identical motorcycle-based courier service with the ability to provide emergency response on a 365-days-a-year basis.

Freewheelers EVS savings compared with taxis

A tangible way that we can demonstrate how much money we save the NHS is by calculating how much each delivery would cost if it were made by taxi. This is an easy calculation for Freewheelers to make as we keep a detailed log of every single journey that we make. Note that the distance between hospitals is only part of the actual journey that we make. In addition the volunteer rider will travel from home to the pickup location and then back home from the drop-off. In some cases this can add over 50 miles to the journey. Think of this when you ask us to do a short 2 mile trip across town for you! In 2008 we made nearly 2,200 deliveries over a distance of 100,000 miles. Our calculations show that this saved the NHS over £100,000 in taxi fares. In 2011, the figures jumped to 3,400 deliveries and £150,000, and in 2012 it is likely to go higher. 

To calculate how much an NHS hospital would have to pay for a taxi, simply look at the tables below or enter the distance between the two hospitals into the Taxi Pricing Spreadsheet. These calculations are based on the cost of hiring a taxi in Bath (published in December 2010) late at night.

Important Note: Freewheelers' service is completely free of charge to the NHS. The tables below are what it would cost hospitals if they did not use our service. BRI is used in the tables below for any call to Bristol Royal Infirmary, Bristol Children's Hospital, Bristol Oncology Centre and St Michael's Hospital.

Freewheelers EVS savings compared with an NHS-provided courier service.

Calculating taxi costs is one way to demonstrate our savings to the NHS. However, the method is flawed no taxi can provide an emergency response, nor be able to cut through heavy city traffic, nor be guaranteed to be available on demand as Freewheelers volunteers can do. Try calling for a taxi at 11:30pm on a Friday night in Taunton or Bristol and you will get the idea of what we mean.

So another way to look at the cost saving is to calculated what it would cost to provide a fleet of specially equipped motorcycles, riders, co-ordinators and administrators for 365 days of the year. To set up a service like Freewheelers you would need to account for the lease of three bikes plus maintenance, tax, insurance, fuel, tyres, office and garage space. You would also need to provide a manager, an administrator (or two!), call dispatchers and number of riders - who would likely be paid a similar rate to an ambulance technician. Our calculations show that it would cost the NHS more than £300,000 per year to provide a service as good equivalent to ours.

Bearing in mind that Freewheelers operates on around £35,000 per year of public donations and you will see that regardless of how you account for our savings we provide excellent value for money.