Donating blood is not made easy for people

[Floogal]

Listening to today's news, regarding the severe shortages of blood stocks and the call to get more donors has got me thinking.

https://www.itv.com/news/2025-06-09/nhs-calls-for-an-extra-200000-blood-donors-as-stocks-run-low

They don't exactly make it easy for people to donate as sessions are often at inconvenient times and places (week days and working hours when most people are working). And as a former donor myself, I was often made to feel that they were doing me a favour by letting me donate. Not forgetting the cancelled sessions.

It is inconvenient sometimes, but if I needed a blood transfusion at 3am I would not want to have to wait for a convenient time to receive it.

I have always been treated really well and thanked for my donation.

I agree. It’s all by appointment around here, I think drop in sessions would be better, and at weekends and evenings as well.

I agree. I’ve tried to sign up to donate several times but either the sessions got cancelled, or they only want people with a specific blood type (fair enough), or there is nothing locally.

I was looking the other day and the sessions closest to me were full even though they werent until july/august . I dont want to travel 20 odd miles to go to the donation centre, I want something nearby and convenient to get to.

Last time I went, I registered and was told it was a 2 hour wait. I said I would go home and come back - they said, no, if you go you can’t come back. Also, the locations near me have no parking, and the sessions are always full, unless you book your next one when you are donating - but it’s not always possible to know work commitments that far in advance. So I’ve given up, haven’t donated for about 5 years.

I keep getting letters asking me to travel to Lockerbie to donate.

I live in Argyll. It would take me five hours to get to Lockerbie!

You'd think the system would be more efficient.

I've given up. I did it faithfully for 30 years, but about one time in 3 I got people who were really unpleasant to me, and another one time in 3 in recent years they couldn't take the donation (these days if they don't get the vein first time they're not allowed to try again - I have tricky veins so basically I'm wasting my time and theirs).

We used to have a mobile donation van that came to my work. Everyone who wanted to donate signed up for a time slot and popped out of work to donate. It always seemed busy. I'm anaemic so can't currently donate but my friend had to make multiple phonecalls to find somewhere to donate a few months ago.

I’m a regular donor but it’s getting harder to find appointments and they get cancelled all the time. I have phone calls constantly asking me to sign up due to my blood type but then another call to cancel and rebook. It’s impossible

I’m B- which I think is quite rare. I get emails saying they are in need of my blood, so I book an appointment and then it invariably gets cancelled. Guess it’s supply and demand

I tried to book an appointment today - got put into an online waiting room for 15 mins and then because I didn’t click ‘continue/enter’ quickly enough when the 15 mins were up (I was at work so couldn’t just sit and wait for it to count down) it stopped responding!

It used to be so easy. They came to the town hall several times a year and you just went when suited you. The buses came to work a couple of times a year too.

I donate on a regular basis, but am getting increasingly fed up of the last minute cancellations - receive a text at 8 am to remind me to turn up for my afternoon appointment and then 20 mins later a text cancelling said appointment.

I've donated over 25 pints of blood - I used to go to a place a mile from my house, booked in advance for a 5:30 pm slot. Then I had a baby and couldn't go back because I don't have childcare!

They often run behind so I couldn't guarantee I'd be done before nursery closed, and my partner can't exactly ring out from work (works a later shift) to allow me to donate blood.

Oh yes, I forgot about the unpleasantness. Being snapped at for not reading the information paperwork quick enough. Or being told to go away by the donation van at uni as they were having lunch.

They used to make it incredibly easy to donate, logistically not medically.
Now you have to jump through hoops just to book, the sessions are often cancelled and they never ever have walk ins.
The mobile vans have disappeared, as have the central London donation centre just around the corner from the office.

Now if I were to book, it's a 15 mile journey there. I live in London, there's absolutely no reason for it to be this far away.

I was a regular donor but the last two times I went I was waiting more than an hour and had to go collect my child. The time before that I left work early to go and went in torrential rain to be told my appointment had been cancelled and that I should have shot a text. I actually had got it text which I hadn't noticed due to rushing in the rain 4 mins before my appointment time.

They definitely need to make it more accessible if they want donations to increase.

Make that 13 years for me. I can't simply put my life on hold. Never seem to meet donors in the middle

Where I am we used to have 3 different halls used, one a month. I used to donate on my lunch break. Now they don’t come to my town at all.

I got a silver award as well! Used to be a donation centre with parking out of town that you could call in on way home from work or if you finished early and if there was a space, great. Only got turned away once or twice if it was busy. I gave platelets as well.
then they closed it. City centre only now with no parking so I’ve not been as I have no need to go to the centre. Have tried to book a more local session as I live rurally, only had an appointment in 3 months time so booked it and it was cancelled and I haven’t got round to rebooking.

I saw the news and made an appointment the earliest of which is mid August 🙄

Unbelievable 😡

I have a useful blood type and signed up. Very few appointments to give blood but eventually I got one and was emailed some questions to check suitability and the appointment was confirmed. I turned up and it turns out there was an hour wait and another much longer list of questions - one was relevant to my history so I tried to ask if it disqualified me but they said I had to wait for an hour. I had to go to work. They then kept chasing me by phone to go in but they could never answer my question. So I won’t go back.

YANBU. I used to be a regular donator until a really snotty nurse told me I couldn’t because I had self harm scars on my arms and there was no way to ensure they were sterile (I’d had the scars the whole time and never been a problem previously- just get wiped with the alcohol wipe the same as the rest of my arm!). I’ve been too embarrassed to go back in case I get rejected again.

I gave up after they stopped coming to work or the local church hall. Now you have to book an appointment (in work hours only) for a location in the city centre, battle through the traffic and a series of one way streets to pay an extortionate amount for city centre parking. Only to find out it was cancelled on your way there.