A TEAM of volunteer bikers have been ensuring blood has been transported between Barrow and Lancaster's hospitals.

It is understood a fault developed with the two full blood count analysers at Furness General Hospital on Saturday. 

A team of eight to 10 volunteers with the Blood Bike charity have been making journeys to Royal Lancaster Hospital every two hours to ensure blood samples can be tested. 

A spokeswoman for the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust confirmed there was a problem with the equipment.

But she said it was expected to be fixed by Monday morning. 

Barrow wider John Walker is the local area manager for Blood Bikes - a national charity which provides voluntary motorcycle courier services to hospitals and other healthcare providers, to help with the transport of urgent blood, tissue and organs.

He has been in Scotland over the weekend, but received the call from the hospital trust on Saturday afternoon and put out the message for volunteers to help out. 

He said: "Normally we don't have to do that much because Barrow is so self-sufficient. 

"We normally get one or two runs all weekend, but this meant we had to step up and agree a system where we would do a regular run for them every two hours. 

"We had to phone round a few of the guys to see if they would be able to step up and sort it out and we've had between eight and 10 over the past 36 hours.

"They set up some of the local guys from Barrow and surrounding areas and operated a relay system back and forward to Lancaster, meeting half-way and swapping stuff over.

"They kept that going every two hours on Saturday until midnight, with a break from 2am to 7am, and then continuing again until tonight."

Mr Walker said the vast majority of volunteers choose to make deliveries on their own bike, with their own insurance, and their own petrol.