Bikers are making a real difference when it comes to helping those most in need.

Members of the Freewheelers Service have been quietly helping save lives throughout Wiltshire for the past 15 years but they need more help.

The biking enthusiasts use their riding skills to provide a free out-of-hours emergency transport service that saves the NHS tens of thousands a year.

Biker Barrie David, 43, pictured top left, has been volunteering with the charity for 18 months.

He said: "It is really good fun but it is also really rewarding and for a very worthwhile charity.

"I found out about it through my motorcycle club but I think a lot of people don't know about what we do."

The Freewheelers transport blood supplies, scans, medicines and medical notes to NHS hospitals all around the area, including small community hospitals.

As well as providing this vital service between 7pm and 7am and at weekends and bank holidays, the group aims to encourage safe motorcycle practices and to promote a positive image of motorcycling.

To keep going the charity needs to raise over £16,000 a year, but its existence saves the NHS about £80,000 a year.

When it began there were just a couple volunteers, this has risen to about 50 covering the areas served by hospitals in Bath, Bristol, Somerset and surrounding areas but many more are needed.

There has been a steadily increasing demand for their services, with 1,205 calls received last year, compared to 845 in 2004 and 597 in 2003.

Many of the calls are routine but some are emergencies and the riders use converted police specification motorcycles.

The charity runs three of these bike, used on a rota basis, one based in Bath, one in Bristol and the third in Somerset.

To volunteer you have to be over 25 and hold an advance riding qualification.

More information from www.freewheelers.org.uk or call John Graves on (01934) 512416 or John Woodgate on (0117) 9311853.