NHS operations could be cancelled if blood donations don’t increase, warns National Blood Service
It follows a rise in people cancelling donation appointments over the bank holidays.
The National Blood Service are urging people in the East to keep or reschedule appointments. They're warning that knock-on effects could delay planned operations in the NHS.
Steven Mills, Head of Region for the National Blood Service in the East, said they've seen a reduction in donations due to the recent bank holidays.
"Over the next six weeks, we've got approximately 50,000 appointment slots available"
“This happens every year, we've come through the period where we've had just had the Easter bank holidays, and the weather was excellent, and understandably, people had lots of other priorities. We've then just had our second bank holiday period, and we've now got the half-term bank holiday at the end of May.
"So generally, through this time, people do look to be doing other things, which is totally understandable.”
Although the bank holiday dips are often expected by the service, Steven told us that they're not seeing donation appointments fill up.
"Across the country over the next six weeks, we've got approximately 50,000 appointment slots still available."
“We're just looking for people to either keep the appointments they've already got, or possibly look at trying to book an appointment in the next six weeks...
"...We do have other teams going out around the local area, so if you can't book an appointment for next week, try for the next six weeks and then even if there aren't appointments, then please just book any appointment coming up this year.”
He stressed that blood donations have to be continuous, as blood is only kept for 35 days."It's not something that we can freeze", he explained. "We can't bring it out in two years’ time. We've got to have that sustainability.
"Even donations booked months in advance can make a difference."
"Only about 5% of the eligible population actually donate blood"
Steven told us that not that many people who can donate, do, and he worries that the public may think, they don't need to donate just because someone else is.
“Only about 5% of the eligible population actually donate blood, and on average, we send out 5,000 units to hospitals every day...
"...It's very rare that we keep the blood for 35 days. The hospitals generally want it within two weeks, and they'll be using it.
"So, anyone who's given blood today, you could pretty much guarantee that their blood will be with someone within the next two weeks. So that's how quickly the turnaround is."
We asked Steven about the impact of giving blood. He told us, just one pint can help three people.
"We can then split the pint into the red cells. You can then take from that, the plasma and platelets as well. So that unit could go to one person or it could go to three different patients. So for every unit you're given, you're looking at possibly saving or improving three different people's lives."
So what happens if they don't get enough donations to sustain them throughout the year?
Steven explained, "If we didn't have enough blood donors coming in on a regular basis, then we would talk to hospitals.
"They would then look to see what they could do. I imagine you'd then be looking at hospitals, which would be saying 'actually, yes, we'll be using blood in emergencies', but there could be some general operations that are all booked in, where the hospital says it might have to start to push them back and things like that.
"So then that just has a massive knock-effect of the whole NHS."