The Department works with NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) as it continues its work towards recruiting and retaining more blood donors from ethnic minority backgrounds. Diversifying the donor base is a key priority for NHSBT to address health disparities and ensure patients from all backgrounds can receive the best matched blood.

Work to increase the supply of Ro Kell negative blood type includes increased investment into targeted marketing and engagement. NHSBT launched its ‘Not Family but Blood’ campaign in October 2022, aimed at recruiting more black heritage blood donors and this year launched the #GivingType campaign for National Blood Week.

In addition, the Community Grants Programme funds community and faith/belief organisations to drive awareness, understanding and behaviour change around donation. More than £1.7 million has invested in grassroots organisations promoting blood, organ, and tissue donation since 2018.

Most recently National Blood Week (NBW) has driven over 700 registrations to donate whole blood from people of Black heritage. Sickle Cell Awareness Day followed directly after NBW with a further 77 registrations from people of Black heritage, nearly double NHSBT’s daily average of registrations from this group’.

NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) encourages patients with genetic haemochromatosis (GH) to donate blood and provides open access for individuals to self-refer. People with GH are important members of the blood donor community, and are welcome to donate blood when they are having their iron levels regularly monitored by their general practitioner or specialist team, are generally fit and well, have no organ or tissue damage and meet the standard donor eligibility criteria and designated donation intervals.

In addition, NHSBT has partnered with Haemochromatosis UK on a new campaign to reach patients with GH and encourage them to donate blood. Campaign materials have been sent out to all Haemochromatosis UK members and hospitals to cascade information to haematology nurses via transfusion practitioners to generate awareness where venesections, a treatment for GH, are taking place.

NHS Blood and Transplant have published literature in several languages to specifically communicate the change in law for organ donation to an opt-out system in May 2020. These included materials in Yiddish.

We are assessing all the evidence from the first year of the opt-out testing programme for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and blood-borne viruses in emergency departments, alongside the data on progress towards our ambitions to end new HIV transmissions and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome and HIV related deaths within England by 2030.

This data will be used to examine the feasibility of further expanding the programme and we will be sharing evidence as it emerges to support other areas of the country to make the case for implementing the same approach locally.

NHS Blood and Transplant produces literature relating to donations in various languages including Welsh, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, Urdu, Arabic, Somali, Polish, Romanian, French, Cantonese, Mandarin, Hebrew, and Yiddish.

In the first 100 days of opt out testing over 250,000 HIV tests and over 100,000 hepatitis C virus antibody tests were delivered from April to July 2022. This testing resulted in identification of more than 500 people with a previously unknown (unrecognised or undiagnosed) blood borne virus. The full report can be found at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/emergency-department-opt-out-testing-for-hiv-hepatitis-b-and-hepatitis-c-the-first-100-days/

NHS England and the UK Health Security Agency will publish reports evaluating the impact of the first year of opt-out HIV and blood borne virus testing in 2023. We will consider all the evidence from the first year of opt-out testing alongside the data on progress towards our ambitions to end new HIV transmissions and AIDS- and HIV-related deaths within England by 2030 when examining the feasibility for further expansion of this programme.

We will be sharing evidence as it emerges to support other areas to make the case locally for implementing the same approach in other areas of the country.

We are considering all the evidence from the first year of opt-out HIV and blood borne testing in emergency departments, alongside the data on progress towards our ambitions to end new HIV transmissions and AIDS- and HIV-related deaths within England by 2030, when examining the feasibility for further expansion of this programme.

We will be sharing evidence as it emerges to support other areas of the country to make the case for implementing the same approach locally.

We are considering all the evidence from the first year of opt-out HIV and blood borne testing in emergency departments, alongside the data on progress towards our ambitions to end new HIV transmissions and AIDS- and HIV-related deaths within England by 2030, when examining the feasibility for further expansion of this programme.

We will be sharing evidence as it emerges to support other areas of the country to make the case for implementing the same approach locally.

The Department works with NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) as it continues its work towards recruiting and retaining more blood donors from ethnic minority backgrounds. Diversifying the donor base is a key priority for NHSBT, to address health disparities and ensure patients from all backgrounds can receive the best matched blood.

Work to increase the supply of Ro Kell negative blood type includes increased investment into targeted marketing and engagement. NHSBT launched its “Not Family but Blood” campaign in October 2022, aimed at recruiting more black heritage blood donors.

In addition, the Community Grants Programme funds community and faith/belief organisations to drive awareness, understanding and behaviour change around donation. In the Programme’s latest round, £440,000, including £40,000 from Anthony Nolan, was invested to support 39 organisations to raise awareness of organ, blood, and stem cell donation.

NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) are responsible for raising awareness of blood donation in England to make sure blood components are available at the right time, including platelet and plasma components and plasma for medicines. They do this through a range of local and national media, marketing activity, donor and patient case studies, partnerships, and engagement with faith organisations, including work within Greater Manchester.

NHSBT continues to invest and prioritise the diversification of the donor base to better support the changing demographics of National Health Service patients and help reduce health disparities. Since September 2021, the science relating to blood, organ and stem cell donation forms part of the secondary school curriculum in England, aimed at promoting awareness in young people.

NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT), Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service, Northern Ireland Blood Transfusion Service and the Welsh Blood Service are responsible for raising awareness of blood donation in the United Kingdom.

Since September 2021, the science relating to blood, organ and stem cell donation is taught as part of the secondary school curriculum in England, aimed at promoting awareness of donation in young people.

NHSBT uses a range of media, marketing activity, donor and patient case studies, partnerships and engagement with faith organisations to raise awareness. NHSBT’s Community Investment Scheme committed £400,000 to support 35 grassroot, community and faith-based organisations to drive awareness, understanding and behaviour change.

NHSBT continues to invest and prioritise the diversification of the donor base, in particular, increasing donations from people of Black heritage, to support the changing demographics of NHS patients. NHSBT marked black history month launching it’s ‘Not Family, But Blood’ campaign with Marvel Studios. This high-profile campaign led to an additional 884 people of Black heritage signing up to donate on the first day.

Blood bank supplies are not identified based on the donor’s COVID-19 vaccination status. The Joint United Kingdom Blood Transfusion and Tissue Transplantation Services Professional Advisory Committee (JPAC) provides guidelines for the blood transfusion services in the UK. In July 2021, JPAC published a position statement, which was updated in November 2022, stating that blood services cannot provide information on the COVID-19 vaccine status of donors to recipients and it is not necessary from a safety or efficacy perspective.

This is based on advice from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency that no additional blood and plasma safety measures are recommended in relation to the occurrence of suspected adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines. Individuals vaccinated with COVID-19 vaccines may be accepted as donors, provided they feel well.

Since the launch of the ‘Not family, but blood’ campaign on 6 October 2022, 6,658 new donors of Black heritage have registered to give blood. This represents a 178% increase in new registrations from donors of Black heritage when comparing daily registrations, 106, with the prior 63 days, 38.

In the United Kingdom, blood donations are not identified based on the donor’s COVID-19 vaccination status.

The Joint United Kingdom Blood Transfusion and Tissue Transplantation Services Professional Advisory Committee (JPAC) provide guidelines for the UK Blood Transfusion Services. JPAC published a position statement in July 2021, which was updated in November 2022, outlining that UK Blood Services cannot provide information about the COVID-19 vaccine status of donors to recipients and that this is not necessary from a safety or efficacy perspective.

The following table shows the number of new blood donors in England from 1 November to 31 October in each year since 2019.

Source: NHS Blood and Transplant, November 2022.

The following table shows the number of active blood donors in England from 1 November to 31 October in each year from 2019.

Source: NHS Blood and Transplant, November 2022.

Note:

An active donor is an individual who has donated blood at least once in a 12 month period.

Since September 2021, the science relating to blood, organ and stem cell donation is taught as part of the secondary school curriculum in England, aimed at promoting awareness in young people. NHS Blood and Transplant use a range of media, marketing activity, donor and patient case studies, partnerships and engagement with faith organisations to raise awareness. Its Community Investment Scheme committed £400,000 to support 35 grassroot, community and faith-based organisations to increase awareness, understanding and behaviour change.

NHS Blood and Transplant is also diversifying the donor base, in particular, increasing donors of black heritage.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne MP) on 20 October to Question 60975.

Immunoglobulins are not currently licensed for the treatment of Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS). However, immunoglobulin therapy may be used ‘off-label’, if there are no other alternative licensed products available and the physician considers that immunoglobin therapy is appropriate to address the clinical need in order to manage a patient with MCAS. This decision, under the full responsibility of the physician, will need to be made following discussion between the physician and the patient.

In order to gain a licence for the use of immunoglobulin therapy for the treatment of MCAS, a Marketing Authorisation Holder would have to submit a variation to their Marketing Authorisation to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) with a dossier compiled of safety and efficacy data. Specialist assessors would review the dossier and a variation to the Marketing Authorisation would only be granted if it is determined that the benefits of the product outweigh any potential risks of using the product in its proposed indication.

The MHRA provides a scientific advice service to Marketing Authorisation Holders regarding their submissions should they request it.