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We need your help to rebuild blood, plasma and platelet stocks as bank holidays and trips abroad affect donations this spring and summer. In our update, we also share news of the brand-new donor centre in Brixton, safety survey results, and more.

We’ve been working hard to make improvements to online services based on the feedback we have received. As part of this work, platelet donors can now book, move and cancel appointments online and in the mobile app months in advance.

Chiamaka signed up to give blood at her university Fresher’s Fayre while studying medicine. Now qualified as a doctor, she says she sees the lifesaving effects of blood transfusions directly.

Not only has O negative donor John Collins given an incredible 170 donations since his first at 17 years old, he also sees the power of his lifesaving blood type in action in his work as an emergency care assistant with South West Ambulance Service

Part-time Easter bunny Etta attended a donation session in Ipswich with a bountiful basket of chocolate eggs in April, giving donors her thanks for the blood and platelet transfusions that helped to save her life.

More people than ever before are joining our NHS Stem Cell Donor Registry to potentially be a life-saving match for a patient in need.

When Susan Gaffney, not yet a year old, was discovered to have a hole in her heart, her parents couldn't help but fear the worst. But thanks to open heart surgery and blood transfusions, she has gone on to live a full and happy life.

"She was a person who looked after people and offered to help, and I like to think she continued to do this even when her life ended." Those are the words of Bianca Corney, whose mum Helen Robbins became an organ donor in 2023.

For the first time in 25 years, NHS patients are receiving lifesaving medicines made from plasma given by blood and plasma donors in England.

Sometime in 2020, O negative donor Steve Bryant learned that his blood was suitable for neonatal patients – newborn babies. Despite his lengthy commitment to saving lives, nothing had previously quite hit home in the same way.