Artery runs the control desk for blood bike groups. A job comes in by phone, on the job form or straight from a hospital ward. It gets a number, goes to a rider, and is signed for at every handover. All the while, Artery keeps an eye on the person riding it. It's free, and it's staying that way.
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Riders usually go out on their own. Sometimes it's dark, sometimes the weather's foul, and often it's a road they've never ridden. Pressing SOS is one tap. After that Artery does the chasing, and keeps chasing until a person has said "I've got this".
Every console sounds an alarm and every controller's phone gets a notification. The alert says when it was raised and where the rider is, as plain coordinates with a Copy button, so they can be read straight to 999. Once a controller has seen it, the rider's screen says so, and who it was.
With no data, the SOS waits on the phone and sends itself as soon as there's a signal, even if the app has been closed in the meantime. A rider can cancel their own SOS once they're safe. Only a controller can stand down somebody else's.
If no one has acknowledged it within four minutes, everyone is alerted again and an email goes to the group's backup address, in case a phone notification has quietly failed. If it's been acknowledged but is still live ten minutes later, everyone hears about it again.
If there's live risk on the board and no controller has done anything for twenty minutes, Artery pages all of them. This runs on the server, so it still works on a quiet shift when every console has been left alone.
Who raised it, when and where, who acknowledged it and who stood it down. Nothing is ever deleted from the SOS log, false alarms included, and it exports to a spreadsheet for incident reports.
So Artery watches the clock and leaves the rider alone. A phone buzzing every half hour at someone on a motorbike isn't a safety check. It's a distraction.
Some committees see shift-long position reporting as a lone-worker safety net. Others see it as one step too far. We don't think that's ours to decide, so it's a setting and each group picks.
Dispatch, the rider's app, signatures, the rota, hospital requests and reporting all live in one place. No more flicking between a WhatsApp group, a spreadsheet and the notebook by the phone.
Riders, live jobs and routes on a map. Or the same information as cards on the Dashboard, if you'd rather work from a list. Both views do everything, so it's down to what suits the person on the desk.
When someone rings, press 📞 and the call sheet opens with the next job number already on it, so you can read it out before they hang up. After that it's just the questions you'd ask anyway: who's calling, which ward, what's going and where to.
Every job draws from one sequence a day, so two controllers can never be handed the same number.
A postcode gets a rider to a building. On a big hospital site that can still mean ten minutes on foot looking for pathology. Artery keeps a what3words address for individual doors and departments, so the job points at the entrance they actually need.
Each job is a card with one big button for whatever comes next: collect, hand over or deliver. Directions, the contact's number and Control's notes are all there. It's meant to be used at the roadside, in gloves, on a phone with a cracked screen.
A job is offered, never forced. It only counts as accepted when the rider taps Confirm. Can't do it sends it straight back to Control with a reason, so "on the way" always means a real person said yes.
At collection, at any handover between riders, and at delivery, the person handing over prints their name and signs on the rider's phone. Before anyone signs, the screen shows what should be there and how many, so a missing bag gets noticed on the doorstep rather than at the lab.
Four weeks ahead in four-hour blocks, with the controllers along the top. Volunteers book their own shifts from their phone. If they can't make one, they tap Can't make it instead of quietly deleting it, so the gap stays visible until somebody takes it.
There's no account to set up, no app and no training. Ward or lab staff open a web page on any phone or computer, type an access code, and fill in a short form. The request appears on every controller's screen with a chime.
Nothing becomes a job until one of your controllers says yes. Your people still make every decision, and now each one is written down.
Who's asking and a number to ring them on, where from and where to, what's going and how many, and when it's needed by. It takes a couple of minutes. They get a reference straight away, such as R08103.
Accept, and it goes on the board as a job with its own number, the caller and the needed-by time already filled in. Decline, and the ward sees the reason you give, so nobody is left wondering.
The ward's page updates by itself: accepted, then the job number, then collected and delivered. Once it's accepted they can close it. If there's a problem, Control rings the number they gave.
Jobs go missing in phone calls that never quite happened. A request made on the page is written down the moment it's sent: who asked, from where and when. Accepted or declined, it's in the request log, even if the job is later cancelled or lost.
Plenty of groups keep a second system for the rota, the policies and the training records, with its own logins and its own copy of every volunteer. Artery now covers the parts most groups use one for. One list of people, one password each.
Most volunteers do the same night every week, or every other week. Set that up once and Artery keeps it on the rota eight weeks ahead, leaving out the weeks they've said they're away. When life gets in the way, they can swap with a colleague or pick up a shift that needs cover, all from their phone.
Keep the handbook, the policies and the forms in one library on everyone's phone. For the ones that matter, tick everyone must confirm. Volunteers tap I've read it, and you can see at a glance who hasn't.
New people start as applicants, move on to training and are signed off when they're ready. Before anyone is signed off, Artery checks the training their role needs. If something is missing or out of date it says so, and going ahead anyway has to be a deliberate choice that goes in the change log.
Not the exciting bits, but the things that otherwise end up in someone's inbox or a spreadsheet only they understand.
Volunteers can message Control from their phone and add a photo of a locked door or a damaged box. Whoever is on the desk replies. Everything is logged, and volunteers are reminded that an emergency means SOS, not a message.
ID cards with member numbers and expiry dates, as a PDF ready for whoever prints your cards. Upload your group's own card design and Artery fills in each person's photo, name and number. Volunteers take their own photo in the app and an admin approves it.
Everyone gets a printed or emailed card with their own starter code. They choose a proper password the first time they sign in. If a card goes missing, one button issues a new code and the old one stops working.
Bikes and cars with MOT, service and insurance reminders. Riders do a pre-ride check on their phone, and a vehicle marked unfit can't be given to anyone until a controller says it's fixed.
DBS, advanced-rider, insurance and induction dates for each volunteer. They go amber when they're due and red when they've lapsed, so nobody finds out halfway through a shift.
"The fridge on Ward 4 is broken." A note pinned to every console until the next controller acknowledges it, with who read it and when.
Jobs, miles, how quickly jobs move, and what the same runs would have cost with a commercial courier. Pick any dates and export to Excel. Each figure says how it was worked out.
Shifts, fundraising days and training all counted, because it's all volunteering. Handy for the annual report and for funding bids.
Load volunteers, controllers, vehicles and locations from a spreadsheet. Artery shows you how it read every row before anything is saved, and never overwrites what's already there.
Who did what and when: jobs made, changed, cancelled and closed, riders signing on and off, rota swaps, database edits. Recorded against whoever was actually signed in, not a name typed into a box.
An admin can fix a record or add a job done on paper. The original is never overwritten, and every change is logged.
Put an event on, let volunteers sign up from their phones, and see who's coming. The other half of running a charity, in the same place.
If Artery stops in the middle of a shift, someone could be left waiting for blood. So a lot of the work you never see goes into keeping it running, finding out fast when it isn't, and never losing a record.
Every group's data is encrypted and copied off the server each night, on top of the backups kept on the server itself. Updates only ever send code. Your data is never touched by one.
Each group's Artery is checked every two minutes, including the background process that sends the safety alerts. If one stops, we get an email straight away.
Every change goes onto the demo system and gets checked there before any group's Artery is updated. It was used on real shifts by a working blood bike group while it was being built.
And if the worst does happen, Artery prints an "If Artery is down" card for the control desk: who to ring, how to run jobs on paper, how to keep riders safe by hand, and how to put it all back in afterwards. The current release is Artery v4.00.
Artery holds volunteers' personal details, NHS staff phone numbers and where riders are. That's been taken seriously from the first version.
Controller passwords, and the passwords volunteers choose, are stored only as bcrypt hashes. Nobody can look one up, admins included. All they can do is reset it.
An admin account can change everything, so admins can switch on a six-digit code from an authenticator app, with printed backup codes in case the phone is lost.
Volunteers start with a four-letter code on their card and have to choose their own password the first time. After that, the card code no longer works. Repeated wrong guesses hit a lockout that gets longer each time.
Next of kin, home addresses and compliance dates are for controllers. A colleague's phone number is shown only while they're on shift, and nobody's position is ever sent to another volunteer.
Everything needs a signed-in session except a short list of things that have to be public, like the hospital request page. A new feature can't go out unprotected by accident.
A random token in a secure, HttpOnly cookie that runs out after 12 hours of inactivity. Issuing a new code for a lost card, or removing someone's access, signs them out of every phone at once.
A strict content security policy, rate limits and a cap on request size. The data files themselves can't be reached over the web, and outside API keys never get anywhere near a browser.
The group's main Admin account can't be deleted, or have its password changed, by any other admin. It's deliberate: a group can't be locked out of its own system from the inside.
A Data Protection Impact Assessment covers what's held, who sees it, where it goes and the risks that are left, including the ones we'd rather not have. Ask and we'll send it.
A controller can be made rota manager, training officer, keeper of volunteer records or the person who runs the reports, without becoming a full admin. Take it away and it stops working straight away.
If a volunteer asks what you hold on them, an admin can put it all together in a couple of clicks: their record, shifts, hours, training, messages with Control and more. Passwords and other people's details are left out.
The Artery card on a volunteer's phone has a QR code that keeps changing, so an old screenshot soon stops working. Scanning it shows whether the card is valid right now. Remove someone's access and their card says NOT VALID at once.
Each group has its own separate Artery, with its own data and its own web address. There's no shared pool and no group can see another's information. It all runs over HTTPS on UK hosting.
Taken from the demo system, which is full of made-up hospitals, riders and jobs. Scroll sideways for more.
Written from scratch, for the people who ride and the people on the desk.
Artery wasn't bought in, and it isn't courier software with the logo changed. It was written from scratch by a blood bike volunteer, a feature at a time, and almost every feature is there because of something that happened on a real shift. The SOS chain is there because riders go out alone. The door-level locations are there because a postcode isn't enough on a big hospital site. The phone sheet puts the job number at the top because it needs reading out before the caller hangs up.
It doesn't belong to any one group. Each group gets its own separate Artery, and every change is tried on the demo system before it reaches anyone's control room. It was used for real shifts by a working blood bike group while it was being built, and it still gets better most weeks, usually because somebody asked for something.
Six short guides with screenshots, written for the people who'll use each part. Handy for a committee meeting, a training evening, or the volunteer who'd rather read it than be shown. They're small enough to open on a phone or forward by email.
How a ward books a run, the reference they get, and how Control turns it into a numbered job.
PDF · 9 pages · 0.8 MBDownload PDF → ControllersThe phone sheet, from reading out the number to putting the job on the board.
PDF · 6 pages · 0.5 MBDownload PDF → ControllersThe job form, items and counts, giving it to a rider, changing it later, and scheduled runs.
PDF · 8 pages · 0.7 MBDownload PDF → Controllers and adminsA tour of the console: the fleet, the rota, messages, reports, handovers, the Team window and the admin tools.
PDF · 17 pages · 2.6 MBDownload PDF → EveryoneSOS, running late, home safe and location, from both the rider's side and Control's.
PDF · 11 pages · 0.9 MBDownload PDF → Riders and driversEverything a volunteer does on their phone, from signing in to swapping a shift and signing off.
PDF · 21 pages · 1.2 MBDownload PDF →Rather have it all in one place?
Download all seven guides ZIP · 6.1 MB Full user manual PDF · 32 pages · 0.5 MBThe zip has the six guides above plus the user manual, which covers riders, controllers, admins and hospital staff.
No group pays to use Artery, and none ever will. What does cost money is the servers that keep every group's app running around the clock. Companies that sponsor Artery cover that cost, and are thanked here in front of every blood bike group that visits.
Every group gets its own private copy of Artery on UK hosting. A company sponsorship pays for those servers, so the groups never have to.
Talk to us about sponsoring →Hosting companies, IT firms and suppliers can help just as much by donating a server, a domain or other services Artery runs on, instead of money.
Offer a service →Not a company? Every pound on the GoFundMe goes on the servers that keep Artery free for blood bike groups.
Donate on GoFundMe →What sponsors get: your logo and a link to your website here on arterybb.uk, and a public thank-you when you come on board. Artery itself stays free of adverts. Your support is shown here, never inside the app the riders and controllers use.
The things most blood-bike groups want to know before taking a closer look.
If your group moves blood, samples, donor milk, medication or anything else where the clock is running, get in touch. We'll set you up on the demo system with made-up data so you can click about freely, as a controller and as a volunteer.
Artery