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.

I think we all need to remember that patients come and go. But an administrators career is for life. If you add that as a factor, everything suddenly makes a lot more sense.

Actually - it does make sense! 16 years working in the NHS and I never thought of it like that - thanks!

Careful, you might end up understanding policing and education too. Then where would you be ?

I take it we already knew about banking, insurance and the law ?

I haven't seen the research, but it strikes me that people who don't give blood aren't likely to know much about the availability or otherwise of donor sessions, so that wouldn't feature highly on their list of reasons. For me, and many on this thread, lack of availability is the only obstacle. I know, anecdata. But if a donor van set up anywhere in my town, right now, I'd be out there in the pissing rain to give blood.

When they say they need 200k more donors what they really mean is ‘200k O negative donors who live in cities and have good haemaglobin levels and visible veins’. That is how you get the max amount of donations per nurse work day. No nurse or mobile donation van travel time used up as everyone visits a donor centre, no people turned away because of their haemaglobin being too low or veins not usable. And every donation being universal donor blood.

I seem to be quite lucky compared to most, have given blood over 40 times and only had one cancelled appointment.

I also don't tend to have a long wait. I did used to be able to walk to give blood but now it's only possible to get to with a car.

But, I have had 2 occasions in the past 2 years where they have failed on the first attempt to get the blood, so no donation. This never happened in the past as they tried again. I find it so frustrating after sorting out things like childcare to then not even being able to give blood. That's another thing, you can't take children with you now either. I never wanted to when they were younger, but I know they wouldn't be any bother if I took them now.

There are also far fewer appointments, so while I do still give blood, it's not as often as I could. Although if I could take my children I could go more.

As DM used to say:

"Yes, but that's you".

😀

I'm a priority donor (I have an extremely rare sub blood group, which can be given to people with sickle cell disease who need frequent transfusions) and have access to a priority booking line. I get constant comms making sure I'm going to donate, but the last 2 sessions have been cancelled with no comms. Twice I've got there for a 7.05 pm slot, to be told that slots after 6pm/7pm have been cancelled and no comms sent out before I rushed to get there!

The blood service is making more and more silly and unnecessary changes, seemingly just for the sake of it. I have no idea why, or who sits around making these daft changes. They no longer do a cup of tea after your donation. WTF? That was the agreement. They even put tea in their adverts. Donate, you get tea and biscuits. Now the grey suits decide it’s not safe or something. Probably to stop the thousands of deaths every year caused by serving a cup of tea. Now the appointment letters no longer show the date and time of your appointment. Again, WTF? Look on their website, and it says “to save money and help the environment”. But they still send the letter and questionnaire out by post, so what exactly are they saving?? It’s still the same number of sheets of paper FFS. They’re still posting it out! It just doesn’t have the date and time of the booking on it. So what have they saved?? The minuscule amount of printing ink? Absolutely clueless, and it puts people off with their pettiness.

I think these decisions must be regional - I haven't received anything regarding appointments in the post for several years now, they give you the questionnaire when you arrive and the centre I go to definitely gives you tea or coffee afterwards.

I donated today, booked an appointment this week after seeing on the local news that they are short of donors of my blood group. Everyone was very friendly and pleasant. I appreciate that's not the case in all centres. This was a mobile donation in a local church hall and I was able to walk there. I've booked my next donation at the same place and have enjoyed my orange Club biscuit.

I donated again a couple of weeks ago. I have to travel to different towns to donate as the places closest to me weren't available until January! There are the main donation centres in glasgow and Edinburgh but they are much further than I want to travel to donate

And after I donated it was offered a carton of orange or apple juice or some water and you have to sit on the bed until it's finished and then you get a choice of biscuits from the table when you leave. I chose a kitkat

I gave my 49th donation a couple of weeks ago. I find the mobile service a bit unreliable and they often cancel the later appts if they overrun, or the whole session if they are short staffed. I have started to make the effort to go to a permanent city centre location. I can work from an office in that city which makes it easier. I have a very rare subgroup (O + Rho) that is either used for research or to for transfusions for people with sickle cell disease. I have a priority booking phone number - number 50 booked for Feb.

oh, and hot drinks only seem to be a thing in the permanent centres, but no longer with the mobile service IME.

I donate in my local town (church hall) but they are only there every 4 months. This is how often I can donate (12 weeks for men) and I book my appointment straight away after donating but if I missed one then it would be 8 months between donations. Maybe this is why people are seeing such limited availability.

My experts is always positive though, very friendly staff, and lots of biscuits/crisps available after.

Been giving blood for 30 years and has always been very easy, some companies had buses come to offices, but my DH and I have always been able to find somewhere local after work hours.

Scottish blood donation is a totally different system to the English one. I started donating in Scotland then when I moved to England I couldn't even transfer any of my frequent donor status information.

Last week I was able to book a next day slot at my local centre. Never happened before but it was wonderfully convenient.

Almost impossible to book appointment
Appointment almost always cancelled
Staff rude and aggressive
Give up

NBTS and SNBTS are two entirely separate organisations. They used to operate entirely independently of each other, didn't really share information, operated different clinical practices etc etc.

They will not share the same record-keeping systems or the same records. In that respect, it's no different to donating in Scotland then flying to the other side of the globe to donate in Japan. You wouldn't expect the Japanese to have access to your SNBTS record.

I gave up after one time when I filled in all the health forms, handed them in, waited an hour then when I was called, they looked at my forms and said because I’d had paracetamol earlier in the day, I couldn’t donate. I get that but why do they not check the forms when I handed them in?
Another time, one of the staff was really rude to me and she didn’t put the needle in properly so blood was too slow coming out, so they couldn’t use what they’d got and wouldn’t take anymore.
Appointments aren’t available for months where I live so we’re looking at at least a half an hours drive away for something that isn’t months away.

Im in Scotland but Edinburgh and Glasgow are still a trek for me. I have managed to book for January in my own town for once. You can only book online 8 weeks in advance in Scotland.

I know. That’s what I said. Why are you explaining this back to me?

I've booked to go on Wednesday, but have had to go to the main donation place in Edinburgh. Luckily, I can work not too far away for the day, but it does frustrate me that they're forever texting me about the local appointments, which are once a month, on a Tuesday, from 10-12, then 2-6, and sometimes 7-8. There aren't that many slots either, so there's a chance that they all fill up within 15 mins of the text coming through....

I am, however, a little suspicious that there will be a reason for them not to take the donation. I even called to check, but I had surgery 6 months and 1 week ago, and am also on new medication. I'm told it's all ok, but let's see on Wednesday evening!

To lend some extra context for anyone else who might be interested.

Yes, you said "two different systems", but that doesn't express that the two organisations are wholly separate and have next to nothing to do with each other.

They way you expressed it, it comes across like you were actually surprised this is the case.