Blood donation

[barakta]

It sounds like they made more appointments than they could honour. I agree messing donors around should be a last resort as it is people giving up blood, time and putting up with some hassle for a good reason.

[jsabine]

I've never (36 last week) been turned away having made an appointment, and I've only once been turned away at the door having gone there on spec, though I've had to wait for 90-odd minutes once or twice when I've not had one. I've found appointments with just a few days to go several times, presumably because someone has cancelled - fairly sure the sessions had been fully booked when I'd checked online a little earlier.

They've just got rid of the bloodmobiles round our way though, so just waiting to see what the knock-on effect on session availability is.

[TPMB12]

I once booked for the next session while sat at tyre refreshments. I booked for a time about 1 hour into the session. I got there 15 minutes early and prepared to wait. I waited almost 2 hours.

The session before i turned up at the same time and didn't take any longer time to get through the system.

Perhaps I'm at an over subscribed session or a town which is busy enough to warrant additional sessions but isn't given any. Whatever the issue they need to sort it out. It's not just me who has an issue with these sessions, I've heard other donors complaining quite loudly at most sessions I've been to.

Whatever the cause I've given up giving blood. I'll possibly give it another go every few years to see if it's any better. If not then i disappear for a bit longer. Shame since i believe everyone who can should give blood. A civic duty.

[SoreTween]

It sounds like they made more appointments than they could honour. I agree messing donors around should be a last resort as it is people giving up blood, time and putting up with some hassle for a good reason.

This. 
Respect the people giving up their time, effort and blood.  Make less appointments so that when someone walks in with an appointment they sit down and get on with it.  I resent waiting 45 minutes to start the process when I have shown you the respect of turning up at the agreed time.  Where the centre is large enough have a separate stream of beds for walk ins.

Have less variation in the main donation centres.  Some main donation centres you can walk in (e.g. Horsham), others you cannot (e.g Gloucester) and there is sod all in the web site to tell you which is which.  Horsham it is pointless booking, you just join the same queue as the walk ins, Gloucester you can't walk in, it is appointments only.  To me the permanent locations should be more focussed on the drop ins, the mobile events should be geared towards maximum convenience for the donor.   What is the point of the mobile service if not to attract those that cannot spare the time to get to a fixed location centre?

Take the narrow minded prongs who schedule locations round the back of the barn with one round chambered.  I've ranted about this before but really, scheduling all the donations in a given locale on the same day of the week?  FFS.  They work on priority 1) convenience for office based salaried scheduling staff.  2) Convenience for the salaried donation staff. 3) venue availability 4) the unpaid volunteers without whom there'd be no damn service in the first place.  It's Tuesday or FO round our way.  I have now FOd & donate in Wales.

I don't do it for the thank you letters, the SMS messages, the cards or the X donations trinkets.  Bin all that crap and spend the money running one more vampire bed per county.

[Kim]

I've never been allowed to give blood, so I've never had the experience to compare.  It sounds like they're operating as if there is a donor shortage, when that isn't actually the limiting factor (I assume because of budget cuts).

Trinkets and cards probably do have some effect on average, even if it's just reminders, otherwise they wouldn't bother.  Again, makes sense if donors are the bottleneck.

[Dibdib]

I don't think donors are the bottleneck, even though there's a near-constant shortfall. I've been getting a lot of reminders lately, more so than usual. It's just that (IMO) the funding provided is an even tighter bottleneck.

[mrcharly-YHT]

I bet that staffing is the bottleneck, that is, funding for staffing is the issue. Same as hospital A&E etc.

[Dibdib]

Exactly. I occasionally get a bit woozy after donating, and while I don't mind it - me feeling light-headed for ten minutes versus a potentially life-saving transfusion for someone isn't really an inconvenience - the staff have told me in the past that they just don't have the resource available to deal with regular fainters, as it's time spent not getting someone else through the process.

[trekker12]

I haven't given blood for some years now. I nearly fainted the last time I gave blood and they were very good about it but it left me holding up the bed for a further ten minutes or so. I guess it can cause a bottleneck.

The last time I tried I wasn't allowed in as I have eczema on my hands and that day was particularly bad so they saw it as an open wound. I guess it's fair enough but I didn't particularly like the attitude from the nurse running the desk but I understand she has a fairly hectic job. I could have bandaged up my hands and gone back in I suppose.

[TPMB12]

If it's a funding issue then why did it all go wrong under Labour when the NHS was getting a lot of money thrown at it and there wasn't a crisis?

Round here i was nearly turned away one time before appointments. The next donation session i got told about appointments. Took one and it took just as long to get through. Then a few sessions down the line you couldn't get in without an appointment. Then appointments got taken so you couldn't get in unless you're in when they open up each session

Stuff that!

I don't mind the inconvenience of turning up and waiting a couple of hours. I hate doing that when I've got an appointment. Scrap appointments. Give everyone a number and they get called up in turn. That's fair and egalitarian IMHO.

Still giving blood is a good thing to do

[jsabine]

Strikes me that there must be a lot of local variation in, well, something, because although I'm quite happy to whinge about bits of the service round here (SE London/NW Kent), it seems fundamentally OK.

My experiences are clearly at odds with those of other posters, but I'm reasonably happy with everything from finding convenient sessions to making appointments and being seen in a timely manner. The past couple of sessions,  it's been about an hour from walking in to leaving, having eaten my fill of biscuits; the session before that took a bit longer, but that was down to a backlog caused by about three donors in a row having health problems which meant they each needed an extended phone consultation with the offsite doctor, and meantime were occupying the privacy cubicles so no-one else could be processed ... 

[mrcharly-YHT]

If it's a funding issue then why did it all go wrong under Labour when the NHS was getting a lot of money thrown at it and there wasn't a crisis?

Your experience is completely at odds with mine. I was a regular donor back then and never had those problems.

Can't donate anymore, my blood is contaminated with strange drugs.

[TPMB12]

At odds with your experience but still a valid question. Even if it wasn't going wrong in your venue/area it's been poorly managed in my area. Funding, IMHO, seems to be an easy excuse for mis-management. It won't be that simple.

BTW with one communication you're getting letters saying your donation is so very important because your blood can be used in 83% of recipients then another communication over the phone saying there's no appointments left so try your luck on the day. The way the blood service person n said that left me in no doubt the person didn't expect I'd make a donation if i turned up. Then i get turned away. Then i get another letter telling me i had missed a session there's another one on such a date...

Sorry but IMHO they need to consider the donor more. Right now it's hard to free up the time to make the sessions. I have a young child with about an hour at night to see him. He sometimes doesn't get up to see me off in the morning. It's a big deal for me to give up spending time with him for an extra 24 hours to make the session. At the time of my last successful donation i had to drop work to make one of the very first appointments. Then pressure at home too...i mean family life is more important than blood donation to my partner.

Anyway, sorry about the rant. It's just that the way it got here and hearing that it's going ok elsewhere just set me off. It must just be my poorly run area. I can easily understand a poor manager at some level results in poor service but that should really get reported back by donation staff and be rectified. Adding another session, perhaps on a first come first served basis? It can't be that hard to sort out surely?

[barakta]

Sounds like your area is especially poorly run. Labour did put money into the NHS but they also did constant changes and it may well have been those trickling down and management somewhere in your area being bad for a long time.

[TPMB12]

Don't get me started about Labour and the NHS. Something scary i got told involved the very expensive appointments computer system. Since waiting times was part of Labour's imposed targets the software gave priority to new referrals to clinics. In the cardio department this resulted in a patient with worrying results needing further investigations and consultant appointment. Since his appointment delay had no negatives in terms of targets he didn't get the follow-up within 2 weeks like he would have under the old system. By the time he got his follow-up his condition had deteriorated beyond the point that simple drug regime could sort out. Resulted in a hastily arranged surgery during which he died.

The computer system was later turned off and scrapped quietly. The case i heard about wasn't the only one just the most severe. All because Blair's target culture led to blind focusing on a limited metrics. Clinical need sometimes came second. This case just makes me think the NHS isn't safe under any political regime.

[Greenbank]

Labour & NHS: P&OBI --------------->

They've just got rid of the bloodmobiles round our way though, so just waiting to see what the knock-on effect on session availability is.

That's what's done it for me. I used to be able to sneak out of work for 45 minutes with a bloodmobile about a 5 minute walk away (back of County Hall).

Now that's gone there's nothing I can get to in a short enough time to justify doing it on a work day, and the donations local to home clash with something else.

It's also quite incompatible with running training except for a rare rest (or at least low mileage) week.

[ian.r.mcdonald]

my experience is reasonable in Stoke with the only issue when I used one of the travelling centres rather than my normal trip to the donor centre.

the staff are trying their best and the possible effect of taking a ( perfectly reasonable) choice of stopping donations could result in a patient in danger

use the occasional grief as a badge of honour to feel good about donating!

[TPMB12]

Grief? No grief here i just can't get in unless I've booked an appointment at a previous session whilst sat around the refreshments. So I didn't book a session because I knew I'd be away. The session after i turned up with my form only to be told it was full. I phoned up to book an appointment at another session once i received a session letter/form but there were no more appointments left at a time i could get there by. IIRC I'd have to be at the session at the time i leave work which was half an hour ago.

So I am no longer a donor. So no grief here. I'll try again one day but not fit for awhile. Give it a few more years to get better.

[Phil W]

I used to be a regular donor. A blood wagon used to park outside office. Advertised in advance. Could make appointments or turn up.  Didn't have to wait long, if busy could return later. Done in work time and work didn't mind if you were gone for a while to give blood. Wagons withdrawn. Advertising posters no longer sent or put up. Several mix ups with my details. Weekday I can no longer give blood as just doesn't work. Several poor experiences of weekend attempts that felt like the old waiting in all day for a delivery etc. So I no longer give blood.

[Martin]

younger guy just made his first donation.

I am A+.  one child is A- and the other is O+, so I can have their blood but they can't have mine.  This seems wrong, somehow.

well actually the A- can have your A+ if he's male; but correct the O+ can never have yours;

the reason all this incompatibility exists is due to bacteria in our guts which have molecules on their surface very similar to blood groups on our red cells; and we form antibodies to the molecules we don't possess. We were never evolved to share blood so it only became apparent from 1900 onwards. Although mothers and babies have had blood incompatibility since the start; and still do have but we are now a lot more geared up to prevent it and deal with it when it happens.

[Greenbank]

The online booking system (https://www.blood.co.uk) is great (I used to use it when it was protected by the Government Gateway credentials rather than email/password credentials).

I used to have at least two sessions booked in advance (more than 12 weeks apart obviously) and after a donation I'd make my next appointment (24+ weeks ahead) as required. This meant I always got the appointment I wanted that suited me.

[jsabine]

That's fine (and similar to what I do, though I'm not quite so organised), but only works if you've either got certainty about what you're doing three or six months in the future, or enough flexibility to plan your life around the appointment. You also need a reasonable choice of sessions.

[rogerzilla]

My mother is almost up to 75 donations, at which point they give you a statuette of Nosferatu or something.  She reckons she might stop there.

[offcumden]

Platelet donation is the way to go if you have an audax-like tendency to collect points. Each donation counts as two (your platelets can be shared around, or summat), and you can donate monthly instead of 3-monthly. After many years of giving full blood I got my certificate for 50 donations, but since I changed to giving platelets a couple of years ago I've raced to over 100.  Or, in AUK terms, since I started the RRTY I've become a sort of Ultra Ran-donor     My collection of certificates, pens, gongs etc seems likely to outstrip my AUK goodies. And all it takes is a couple of hours a month in a chaise-longue being attended to and fed tea and biccies by nice nurses. What's more, people I tell seem far more impressed than they ever did when I spent my weekends riding silly distances.

[arabella]

I went this evening.  It seems there are now 2 types of appointment - normal ones and provisional ones which aren't really appointments at all 'cos you have to go and make an appointment as well.  Or something.

There was a long queue, so possibly I wasn't the only person to be caught.  And there were 2 trainees, I got one of them, it seems she put the needle in a bit skewed as the blood came out at snail speed (usually I'm done in about 5 mins, this time I was still going slow at 7-8 mins...)

I feel stuffed, I'm sure I didn't use to.  Only another 5 years to my next medal.

A note on platelet donation - the lower weight limit is about 9 stone, ie higher than for blood donation.