NHS: Giving blood has "never been more important" as health service pleads for more young donors

Health officials have urged young adults to donate blood after it emerged that the number of the youngest donors has drastically diminished.

NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) said that the proportion of regular donors in England aged 17 to 24 has fallen to almost half the rate it was five years ago. It comes as the age demographics of blood donors appears to be changing, bucking recent trends of a younger donor pool.

Since 2018, the majority of donors have been aged 17 to 44, but now, more than half of donors are over the age of 45, NHSBT said. Figures from NHSBT show that in 2017-18, young people aged 17 to 24 made up 13.07 per cent of the donor pool but in 2022-23 this fell to just 7.2 per cent.

Meanwhile, about 408,000 of the 798,000 people who regularly give blood are aged 45 or over (51.1 per cent). Older donors are now in the majority in every region of England except for London, NHSBT said.

While face-to-face drives – such as Fresher events at universities – have restarted again, NHSBT has also launched new campaign Giving Types to encourage people to consider becoming a blood donor.

Dr Jo Farrar, chief executive of NHS Blood and Transplant, said: "Because lifesaving blood only has a short shelf life, we need to constantly collect it and need a steady stream of new donors. For the first time in five years, we have more donors who are aged over 45 than under, so it has never been more important for younger people to become lifesavers by giving blood.

"Giving blood feels great. In just one hour you can save up to three lives. Please register and book your first appointment today."

NHSBT needs to collect 1.45m units of blood each year to meet the needs of patients across England. As well as encouraging more young people to give blood, NHSBT is also trying to recruit more donors with black heritage.

They are more likely to have the blood type "urgently needed" to treat people with the genetic blood disorder sickle cell.

People can register as a blood donor and book their first appointment via the GiveBloodNHS app or at www.blood.co.uk.