Blood Donation

Oral answer to question provided on Tuesday, 4 July 2023 in the House of Lords, by Lord Evans of Rainow (Conservative).

Answer

I am grateful to my noble friend for her question and for describing her particular circumstances; I thank her for her donations. I will take her specific case back to the department and respond in writing.

This is an answer to the Oral question asked on Tuesday, 4 July 2023 by Baroness Davidson of Lundin Links (Conservative).

Question

My Lords, one way of expanding the donor pool is to look at the criteria of those currently excluded. There have been five cases in history of variant CJD being transmitted in the UK by blood transfusion. Because of those five cases, the blood transfusion service stopped accepting donations from people who had received blood since 1980. As someone who received large quantities of blood as a five year-old child in 1984 following a car accident, I successfully gave blood for a time in my late teens before that ban was brought in and it stopped the practice. I know from direct experience that those whose lives have been saved by donations can have the strongest desire to contribute to the system and potentially save others. Hundreds of thousands of people are ready and willing to donate but are stopped by this rule, so do the Government expect to review this rule any time soon?

Type

Oral answer to question

Reference

831 c1103

Session

2022-23

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords chamber

Deposited Paper DEP2023-0603
Wednesday, 19 July 2023
Deposited papers
House of Lords

Subjects

Blood

Donors

Link

View this Oral answer to question on hansard.parliament.uk