Heroes needed

The NHS is appealing for help as stocks of O negative blood are running low. Around the country blood donations have dropped significantly because of the hot weather and World Cup fever.

The combined effect has cost the NHS around 2,000 blood donations in the last two weeks alone.

This has left an urgent need for people with the valuable O negative group to donate at their nearest donor centre in the next few days. Stock levels are low and will fall below three days as the hot weather continues.

Mike Stredder, director of blood donation for NHS Blood and Transplant, said the NHS only has three days’ worth of O negative reserves instead of the required six days.

‘The long spell of sunshine has been great in many ways but some people have chosen to stay in the sun instead of giving blood, and some people haven’t been hydrated enough to donate safely,’ he said.

‘Nationally, we aim to have six days of worth of blood stocks but today we only have three days of O negative blood. O negative is especially important because it is the universal donor group which can be given to almost anyone in emergencies.

‘If you are O negative and you can give blood, please donate now.’

NHS Blood and Transplant’s ‘Bleed for the team’ campaign aims to encourage more people to register and book an appointment to give blood during and after this year’s World Cup. 

NHS Blood and Transplant need nearly 700 new blood donors every day to continue providing their life-saving service and 50,000 donors during the World Cup alone, from the first-round matches right through to Sunday’s final.

Currently, twice as many women come forward to donate blood for the first time as men. This needs to change. More men are needed to come forward to provide life-saving products like plasma and platelets.

Men's blood is particularly useful for making plasma and platelets. Your blood could be used to save victims of burns, car crashes and provide life-saving treatment to patients with cancer.

Fleet administrator and platelet donor Christopher Simonovitch from Crawley vehicle workshop, said: ‘NHS Blood and Transplant are after platelet donors but importantly, they are also after people from ethnic backgrounds.

‘Although everyone has one of eight blood groups A,B, AB and O with or without the Rhesus antibody, there are also some parts in blood that are specific to different races, hence the need for donors from all ethnic backgrounds.

‘To give what is known as “whole blood” takes at most an hour and donors can give blood every 12 weeks. The blood is taken back to the centre where it then can be separated into different blood products.

Another way of giving blood is by Apheresis. This takes around two hours and donors can give blood every two to four weeks. This process take place at donor centres and involves being hooked up to a machine which takes the whole blood, separates the blood and then extracts either plasma, platelets or red blood cells before returning the rest of the blood to the donor.’

It’s easy

Giving blood only takes an hour and the process of donating only takes around 5-10 minutes.

• In just one hour you can save up to three lives
• Find out more about the process here
• Or call 0300 123 23 23 about becoming a blood or platelet donor.

Across the nation, every day around 6,000 people give blood, giving up their time to save lives. Please click here to join them and register today.