Blood Donation
Our Programme
We want to make the blood donation process as easy as possible through better education and access. We have 11 Local groups spread across the UK each based in a different university.
Our local groups carry out a range of activities including:
- We provide education targeted at young people from a diverse range of backgrounds - so that they can make an informed decision about becoming a blood donor. This includes talks in schools and events at Universities.
- We help students sign up to the blood donor register if they want to join and answer their questions about eligibility
- We organise group blood donation events with NHS Blood and Transplant at donor centres close to our university centres
- We work with NHS Blood and Transplant, Welsh Blood System, Northern Ireland Blood Transfusion Servise, and ScotBlood to organise student blood donor recruitment drive.
Since 2021 we achieved....
Registered over 840+ new university student blood donors
175 students gave blood in our group donation sessions
These donations will have saved the lives of approximately 525 people
Our focus on ethically diverse blood groups
Having blood donors from diverse ethnic backgrounds enables blood transfusions to be better matched for recipients. There is a national shortage of blood from black blood donors. This is due to rare blood types being more common in this ethnic group but also due to genetic conditions such as sickle cell disease leading to an increased need for blood donations amongst people of black heritage. Our page on diversity has more detail on this.
Our program aims to raise awareness and recruit new blood donors from all ethnic backgrounds. To do this we have set up local groups in more ethnically diverse areas. We also run events in partnership with student societies such as Afro-caribbean Society.
