Blood Facts

DONATION NOT DISCRIMINATION   

Blood Facts

The National Blood Service, Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service, Northern Ireland Blood Transfusion Service and the Welsh Blood Service are all integrated parts of NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT), which collects blood through donations made by volunteers across the UK.

Every year NHSBT collect, test, process, store and issue 2.1 million blood donations. Each week the Blood transfusion service relies on receiving 2,000 new blood donations. As blood has a limited shelf life new donations are always needed. Last year the blood transfusion service went through a major shortage having to launch an emergency appeal, the first in four years, in order to keep the supply of blood flowing.

There are four main types of blood A, B, AB and O as discovered by Dr Karl Landsteiner in 1900. The majority (44%) of people in the UK have type O blood, just 4% of us have the AB- blood type. If the your blood contains the Ah antigen it is positive if it does not it is negative, so that’s why some of us are o+ whilst others are o-, around 83% of us have the Rh antigen in our blood. Blood donations once had to be processed very quickly, however in the Great War it was discovered that if sodium citrate is added to blood, it stops it from clotting and that it lasts longer if refrigerated.

HIV testing was introduced in 1984 and testing for hepatitis C was introduced in 1991. It is now possible to detect HIV in the blood stream just 9 days after infection with Nucleic Acid Testing (NAT) introduced in July 1999 in Scotland and at the same time was being ‘phased in’ in other parts of the UK.

Blood saves hundreds, if not thousands of lives in the UK every year, just three teaspoons can save the life of a premature baby, therefore it is vital that if you are permitted to give blood, then you do so. There are blood donation centres across the UK and www.blood.co.uk can give details of where and when a donation session will take place in your area.

• Every 30 seconds, someone in the UK receives blood
• Just three teaspoons of blood can be enough to save the life of a premature baby
• The first successful blood transfusion was carried out in 1665 between two animals
• The four different human blood groups were discovered in 1900 after people kept dying unexpectedly following a blood transfusion
• The World’s first blood bank was established in Leningrad in 1932
• 51% of the population have type O blood, this is the type needed with the most urgency
• Popular legend states that your blood group, much like your star sign, can determine your personality
• Parts of a blood donation have a shelf-life of just five days
• The National Blood Service was founded in 1946
• The O group is the oldest of the blood groups. Back in the Stone Age, everyone would have been O - and today it's still the most common group in the UK, especially in the North of England
• Gay and Bisexual men cannot donate blood in Britain if they have ever had anal or oral sex with another man