Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2016-02-02.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to increase levels of blood donation.
Jane Ellison
NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) provide blood donation services to the National Health Service, supplying a reliable, efficient supply of blood in England and North Wales. To secure a consistent donor base, NHSBT runs donor recruitment campaigns throughout the year to attract new donors, for example last year’s Missing Types Programme which featured the removal of the letters of A O B from famous locations and high street brands. NHSBT also ran the #BleedForEngland campaign around the World Cup using rugby celebrities which led to 100,000 new donor registrations. The recently completed New Year 2016 recruitment campaign also saw more than 30,000 people register to give blood.
On 1 February 2016 NHSBT confirmed that more than one million people are now registered to book blood donation appointments online.
NHSBT is also taking specific action to increase the number of blood donors from the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic community, particularly from Black African, Black Caribbean, Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Indian communities.
