National Blood Week

NHS Blood

National Blood Week:

More than 3,500 new blood donors are needed in Somerset to meet demand

• New 5-year Blood Strategy focusses on increasing number and diversity of donors
• Urgent need for more Black African, Black Caribbean and younger donors in Somerset
• Mass public campaign to identify people with most needed blood types
• Sign up at blood.co.uk or on the GiveBloodNHS app

NHS Blood and Transplant are urging people in Somerset to give blood as new targets reveal 3,512 new donors are needed in the county to save lives over the next year.

Nationally one million more blood donors are needed over the next five years to ensure patients receive the right type of blood to save and improve their lives, with a particular need for Black African, Black Caribbean and younger donors.

The five-year Blood Service Strategy, published at the start of National Blood Week, sets ambitious plans to recruit up to a million new donors and double the number of regular donors with the rarest blood types. This will ensure better matched blood types for patients in the future and reduce health inequalities.

Most people know the main blood types;

• O positive (35% of the population, O negative (13 %), A positive (30%), A negative (8%),B positive (8%), B negative (2%) and AB positive (2%)

But we are less familiar with the many sub-types that can provide an even better match to improve treatment. In addition to the rarest blood types, 1 million new donors are needed over the next five years of all blood types. As the NHS treats more patients, it needs to grow the total number of donors too. So don't think being the same as a third of the population means your donation won't be appreciated. It will!

You can dowload the pdf file (NHS Blood) attached and read the fuller report, and/or click the link here which will take you to the website where you can register. In the interest of thorough research, your editor (clearly with too much time on her hands) managed to navigate the website and found there are ten donation venues within a ten mile radius of Curry Rivel – and you can see the selection of appointments offered by clicking on the picture to expand.  You will of course be offered different dates depending on availability when you choose to register.

Blood donation generally takes up to an hour and you will be doing something amazing.