The stats
The NHS has confirmed that it needs around 5,000 blood donations every day on average to meet the needs of hospitals in the UK.
It needs 12,000 new Black heritage donors to meet the growing demand for ethnically matched blood for sickle cell patients who need regular transfusions to stay alive.
It also needs more young people aged between 17 and 35 to donate to ensure it has enough blood for the future.
The campaign
The NHS hopes to encourage a “feel-good” start to the year by launching its new “Give Blood. Feel Good. No Sweat.” campaign. The campaign is aimed at a new generation of “giving types” and hopes to illustrate how easy it is to give blood. The process takes around an hour and one donation can save three lives. It’s hoped that new regular blood or plasma donors will sign up in 2024 and will continue to provide life-saving treatments now and in the future.
Injury Board’s Day of Action
Hugh James is proud to support this campaign as part of Injury Board’s Day of Action. Injury Board is a professional association of trial lawyers who pool their time, talents and resources to expand the footprint of grassroots organisations. In doing so, the association aims to contribute to the strengthening of our communities.
Katherine Allen, a Partner at Hugh James, said:
“Many of the clients we work with who suffer life-changing injury as a result of a traumatic event have benefitted from the first-class blood donation service the NHS runs. The Injury Board Day of Action Blood Drive is a collaborative outreach effort by leading lawyers acting for people injured in such circumstances to make a difference in their local communities.
“We are marking the start of our engagement with the campaign by making a donation to NHS Blood and Transplant, and we intend to work with the service over the coming months to highlight the importance of blood donation to our colleagues and hopefully increase the number of donors across the firm.”
