Blood Donation Essay

A lot of people ask the question why should I give blood? The most appropriate response to that question is … why not? In under one hour, a single person can give one unit of blood that can help save multiple lives. Donating saves lives. Donations are essential for trauma patients and people in a variety of situations, including surgeries, transplants, chronic illnesses, blood disorders and cancer. Seeing as over 90% of people who are eligible to donate do not do so, there is always a need for new donors. There are many different components in blood which can support recovery from injuries or disease, a single blood donation can give up to four patients a better outcome and chance at survival. A recent study by the National Blood Foundation, found that more than 5,000 people who are current blood donors or who have given blood in the past were asked why it is that they donate blood. Nearly three-quarters of responses where that they give blood in order to help others. It was also said that giving blood makes them feel good about themselves as they are supporting their local communities and hospitals and paying back society for the times when they or their families had needed blood transfusions in the past. For all these reasons and more, donating blood is an amazing initiative however for some reason 90% of eligible people are not donating, and for what reason? This essay will research into what methods the world is currently using in order to incentivise blood donations and which combination of these techniques is the most effecting resulting in the most donation in order to give a plan for making England's blood donation the highest possible.

The simplest acts have the capability of having the largest impacts. For more than 70 years volunteers have been donating their time and blood, saving millions of lives in an act that costs them next to nothing. The National Blood Transfusion Service was developed as a response to a multitude of wartime casualties needing blood transfusions as a form of treatment originally starting during world war one and becoming a large manifestation of donations during the second world war. Blood banks were created to store the blood needed in order to save the lives of civilians and soldiers who were injured simply living their lives or fighting to save our country. These banks were later placed under the control of the Ministry of Health in September 1946 where the National Blood Transfusion Service was then created. In 1946, there were around 270,000 people willing and able to donate giving a blood collection of just under 200,000 units per year. However, in 2015 closer to 900,000 people donated with around 154,000 of these people giving blood for the first time in their lives giving about 1.6 million units of blood.

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Every donation of blood has the capacity to save or improve the lives of up to three people and every day the NHS requires over 6,000 people to donate in order to keep up with the demand from patients in hospitals across the country. Although there has been a staggering increase in donations since 1946 there has also been a large increase in the age range and diversity of the patients who require the transfusions meaning that currently there is a requirement for more of some specific requirements. Although every blood type is in demand there is a specific call for donors of blood types O negative and A negative as both groups are currently used the most often with O negative being a universal type meaning it can be used in all emergencies where the patients' blood type is unknown. As well as this, currently over half of all blood donors are over the age of 45 meaning that with an aging number of donors many will soon be too old or unwell to donate therefore we are in need of the younger generations to step up and begin to donate as well as more black and South Asian people to comply with the ethnic diversity of patients as blood matching the history and type of a patient is much more likely to give a positive result in aiding to save or improve the life of the receiver. A lot has changed since 1946 but we still have a long way to come before making the blood donation process as simple and as appealing to the English public as possible.

Currently booking of appointments is, in my opinion, the simplest way to book possible by using online booking and when at the appointment the timeless tradition of free tea and biscuits is still available with the new updates of free WiFi and soft drinks for those who are for some reason, opposed to tea. After giving blood donors are sent a text message to inform them when and where their donation has been used to help others giving them reason to feel good about themselves.