Increasing our blood stocks this winter

To support blood stocks during the critical winter period, three plasma donation teams will be switching to blood donation.

The Bristol and Stratford centres will make the change in November. Plasma donors at these centres will be contacted and where appropriate, asked to donate blood instead.

Barnsley centre will close in December to enable colleagues in the team to work on blood donation teams. Barnsley was being retained on a temporary basis.

Several other plasma donor centres will also use more of their appointments for blood donation. This makes sense given we currently have some spare capacity at plasma centres.

Plasma is being stockpiled for manufacturing at a future date, so there will be no impact on current immunoglobulin supplies to hospitals.

Currently, we have around three days of O negative and around four days of O positive. The aim is to have six days or more.

Winter is always a challenging period for blood stocks, but seasonal pressures are happening earlier than usual this year.