Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 16 September (HL3142), what steps they are taking to promote blood donation in communities of African or Caribbean heritage given the prevalence of sickle cell disease among these groups.

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.