NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) is responsible for blood services in England and is delivering a range of initiatives to increase blood donation in African or Caribbean heritage communities. These include:

• the opening of a donation centre in Brixton in January 2025, aiming to encourage individuals of African or Caribbean heritage to donate, as part of NHSBT’s ongoing effort to diversify the communities where it locates donor centres and mobile collections;
• the NHSBT Community Grants Programme, which funds community and faith organisations to raise awareness, improve understanding, and encourage blood donation among minority ethnic communities; and
• measures to help more people donate successfully, including a pilot translation service to reduce language-related barriers, training to help staff recognise vein characteristics across different skin tones, and improved pre-donation haemoglobin testing.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has recently consulted widely on proposed changes to the lead in blood exposure levels in the Control of Lead at Work Regulations (CLAW) 2002. The consultation concluded on 7 June 2026, and included consideration of the impact on different categories of workers including women of reproductive capacity and the operability of any proposed changes.

HSE will continue its analysis and engagement to better understand the impact of the proposed levels in the coming months, prior to making any further recommendations for reform. Since early 2025, HSE has been engaging with a range of businesses especially the heritage sector, which employs a high proportion of women, about possible changes to CLAW to inform this work.

Whether individuals are prosecuted is rightly a matter for the Crown Prosecution Service and is independent of Government. Given the nationwide scope of the Infected Blood Inquiry, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) has engaged experienced senior investigators to conduct a review of available evidence.

Since the review began following the Infected Blood Inquiry’s May 2024 report, the NPCC has published regular updates on its progress. The review’s initial scope was limited to chapters 1 and 2, but the NPCC’s most recent statement in August explained that it will be extending the scope of the review to all 7 chapters of the Inquiry’s May 2024 report. The Government has committed to making any and all relevant information around the Infected Blood Inquiry available to the relevant authorities where requested.

I refer the Noble Lord to the answer provided in the House of Commons on 20 February in response to Question 112133, in particular points three and four. For ease of reference, this is reproduced below.

NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) is responsible for blood services in England and is delivering initiatives to increase blood donations. These include:

1. increasing awareness of donation through high-profile year-round campaigns including National Blood Week and World Blood Donor Day alongside the use of social media such as TikTok to reach additional audiences;

2. using direct marketing, including phone calls, emails, and text messages, to encourage previous donors to book appointments and attend local sessions;

3. increasing appointment availability and targeting communities where specific blood types are most needed through initiatives such as the Community Grants Programme, with further information available on the NHSBT website; and

4. increasing the number of successful donation appointments by: improving pre-donation haemoglobin (Hb) testing, with low‑Hb deferral rates having fallen since the full rollout of new testing in September 2025; implementing a pilot translation service to reduce language‑related deferrals; and enhancing vein-identification training using ethnicity-specific training arms to help staff recognise vein characteristics across different skin tones and body.

I thank and congratulate my hon. Friend on his many years of campaigning on this terrible issue. He will know about the Prime Minister’s personal involvement in and commitment to this issue, about his personal experience of campaigning alongside the victims, and how important he and the Department consider the matter. The Infected Blood Compensation Authority has now paid out over £2.2 billion in final compensation payments, but we are very aware that there is much more to do. The Minister in the other place will be happy to meet my hon. Friend’s APPG.

It has been nearly two years since the contaminated blood inquiry report was published. People think that the matter is finished, but it is not: some 18,000 infected and affected individuals still have not begun their claims. Will my right hon. Friend reaffirm to this House her commitment to the contaminated blood community, and will she meet the all-party parliamentary group on haemophilia and contaminated blood so that we can discuss the best way to press those cases home expediently?

I am very sorry to hear about the appalling experience of the hon. Gentleman’s constituent. As was mentioned earlier in Cabinet questions, we have made considerable efforts to improve the scheme and ensure that constituents receive their compensation as quickly as possible. Reports are being laid in the House today, and we will consider the hon. Gentleman’s question as we go forward.

No sum of money can truly replace the loss of a loved one. On my summer supermarket surgery tour, I spoke to one constituent who lost his father as a result of contaminated blood products. He wanted me to ask the First Secretary of State about future scheduled payments. Will she consider index-linking compensation to inflation so that delay does not shrink the value of what families have been awarded?

The Defence Investment Plan has set out £10 million to develop or procure dried blood products to improve access to closer to the point of injury on the battlefield.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) is working with the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC), NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) and industry partners to develop a sovereign spray dried plasma capability. The timeline to develop and procure dried blood products is dependent on regulatory approval, establishment of manufacturing capacity and strengthening of the supporting supply chain.

The UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC), which advises ministers on screening matters, made a recommendation not to screen children for lead poisoning in 2018. This is because the number of children affected in the United Kingdom is currently not known, the test was not reliable enough, and treatments in children with mild symptoms have not been proven and may also be harmful.

The UK NSC plans to look at the evidence again, however a timetable for review has not yet been confirmed. The UK Health Security Agency guidance on lead poisoning for healthcare professionals can be found at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/lead-poisoning-advice-for-the-public-and-healthcare-professionals

The UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC), which advises ministers on screening matters, made a recommendation not to screen children for lead poisoning in 2018. This is because the number of children affected in the United Kingdom is currently not known, the test was not reliable enough, and treatments in children with mild symptoms have not been proven and may also be harmful.

The UK NSC plans to look at the evidence again, however a timetable for review has not yet been confirmed. The UK Health Security Agency guidance on lead poisoning for healthcare professionals can be found at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/lead-poisoning-advice-for-the-public-and-healthcare-professionals

The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

As blood services are a devolved matter, NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) is responsible for the blood service in England alone. NHSBT is a critical national infrastructure-owning organisation, and the Department of Health and Social Care works closely with it to review the criticality and resilience of blood services. The Joint Blood Stocks Working Group also brings together the Department of Health and Social Care and NHSBT with NHS England, the National Blood Transfusion Committee, and the Ministry of Defence to strengthen planning and emergency preparedness.

In addition, NHSBT is taking forward work to strengthen the resilience of blood supplies both in business-as-usual operations and during critical incidents, including through its partnerships with Defence Medical Command and the Air Ambulance services. This includes exploring new approaches to transfusion in emergency settings, such as dried plasma, or to the transport of blood samples using drones. This work will support future care in challenging environments, both civilian and defence, and help expand the options to deliver blood services, where it is safe, practical, and operationally beneficial to do so.

NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) is responsible for blood donation services in England.

Blood donor selection guidelines are developed by the Joint United Kingdom Blood Transfusion and Tissue Transplantation Services Professional Advisory Committee (JPAC), which reviews evidence on disease outbreaks worldwide, including travel-related risks.

Assessment of a donor’s travel history helps reduce the risk of transfusion-transmitted infections. NHSBT implements JPAC’s guidelines and works with JPAC, the UK Health Security Agency, and the Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs to ensure blood safety.

NHSBT routinely monitors developments in science and technology to assess whether innovations could further improve blood safety and sufficiency and/or the donor experience.

Since January 2026, NHSBT has been evaluating two new commercial malaria tests to assess whether they may be suitable for blood donor screening. Current UK guidelines require malaria screening using serological testing. Any changes to donor testing or eligibility requirements would need to be supported by robust scientific evidence, a cost-benefit analysis, and consideration through the established UK governance processes.

NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) is responsible for collecting blood donations in England to meet patient need.

NHSBT encourages all eligible donors to donate when it is safe to do so and follows donor selection guidelines developed by the Joint UK Blood Transfusion and Tissue Transplantation Services Professional Advisory Committee (JPAC), which are regularly reviewed and updated.

The JPAC guidelines do not distinguish between stages of the menstrual cycle, such as the follicular or luteal phase. Instead, donor suitability is assessed on an individual basis, including haemoglobin testing before donation.

Information on menstruation and blood donation is available on JPAC and NHSBT websites, at the following two links:

https://www.jpac.org.uk/guidelines/wb/index/periods/

https://my.blood.co.uk/eligibility/health/article/?id=00045p08&title=Menstruation+%3A+Periods

NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) is responsible for collecting blood donations across England, to fulfil hospital requests to meet patient need. NHSBT currently operates 79 blood donation "teams" comprising fixed donation sites, known as donor centres, and mobile collection teams that serve venues within a community.

The attached tables show completed donations and deferrals by donation centre or team, broken down by ethnicity and sex assigned at birth.

NHSBT collects donors’ sex assigned at birth and their gender identity. A donor’s sex is recorded as the ways in which blood products are donated and processed differ between those assigned male and female at birth.

For ethnicity, data has been provided at the high-level ethnic group category due to the size of the dataset and the number of records that would otherwise require suppression because of small numbers. A table mapping detailed ethnicity categories to ethnic groups is included in the attached file.

Where values are greater than zero but less than five, they have been suppressed, displayed as “c”, and the associated percentages have been left blank. For each centre, the values for the ethnicity with the next smallest donation or deferral figure have also been suppressed.

During the period covered by this dataset, the following operational changes took place:

• Brixton Donor Centre opened on 16 December 2024;

• Brighton Donor Centre opened on 22 September 2025;

• Brighton Mobile Team ceased operating on 21 September 2025 following the opening of Brighton Donor Centre; and

• Wolverhampton Mobile Team began operating on 17 November 2025.

The source of the statistics is the NHSBT Deferrals Dashboard, extracted 20 July 2026.