Suggest a blood donation venue

To help us reduce our venue hire expenditure we are always looking for low cost - or even free - venues to make our donation sessions more cost effective. If you can offer any suggestions then please get in touch. Of course, not every venue is suitable, so we have included a list of the main criteria that we consider to be essential below.

The venue

• Our most cost-effective session is run with 9 donation beds, which means we ideally need an empty space of 20m X 10m (approximately the size of a tennis court), or the equivalent thereof. Depending upon layout we can use two rooms if needed.
• Ideally the area to be used will be on the ground floor, or with lifts available if on an upper floor, with easy access to male/female/accessible toilets.

The location

• Each site will be considered individually. Ideally the location will be well served by public transport, and have ample parking for our donors.

Unloading and parking area

• An unloading and parking area is essential. We carry our equipment in a 7.5 tonne lorry, so first and foremost we must be able to drive into the venue. Gateways and routes in must be easily accessed and at least 3.65m (12ft) wide. The lorry is 3.35m (11ft) high so please be aware of any height restrictions. 
• For reasons of personal safety, when we unload or load the lorry we must be off the public highway, ideally in an area free of pedestrians, and onto a hard standing as our equipment is moved on wheeled cages. If the room to be used is on an upper storey, we will need a lift capable of holding 10 people for the movement of our equipment in their cages.   
•  We will need parking for our lorry, a minibus, and one car.

Availability

• Each site will be considered individually. Our donation sessions last in the region of 9 hours from the team arriving on site to the team departing. Start and end times can vary slightly, but a good indication of required availability is that sessions usually run between 9am and 6pm or from noon to 9pm.
• To match the donation patterns of donors, ideally venues will be available on multiple days of the week, and also on bank holidays. If you want to propose an educational establishment, then we ideally need this to be available to us during both term and holiday periods, as holiday-only access does not generally match donation patterns.

Can you make a suggestion?

If you feel you can offer us a venue, or know of a venue that is suitable then please send us the name and address of the building, and ideally a site contact (but a name is by no means essential) to our Venue Development Team email address and we will look into your suggestion.

Current donation venues

We have two types of donation venue - permanent blood donor centres and temporary, community-based venues.

Find out more about our donation venues.