Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department holds on the number of blood donors that were turned away during (a) outreach and (b) pre-screening in the latest period for which data is available; and what the main reasons were for people being turned away.

NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) is responsible for blood donation in England.  NHSBT does not hold data on deferrals resulting from an appointment booking call. It is possible that donors mention a reason which then may result in a deferral during the call, for instance if they have recently travelled or had a tattoo, and are therefore told to wait for an exclusion period, however this information is not recorded.

NHSBT holds information on the number of donors deferred during the donor health check. From 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, a total of 322,189 donors were deferred. Of these donors:

• 16,832 were of Asian ethnicity, 14,806 were black, 281,042 were white, and 9,509 were “other”;
• 201,065 were female and 121,124 were male, their biological sex at birth; and
• the main reason for donor deferral was low haemoglobin. Other main reasons are “medical”, such as medical conditions which result in a deferral for the donor’s health or due to medications that would be present in the donor’s blood, and failed venepuncture.