Nottingham ice skating star, Jayne Torvill opened Nottingham’s new blood donor centre to support National Blood Week.
National Blood Week aims to encourage more people to become blood donors in Nottinghamshire.
The new blood donation centre in Nottingham that opened three weeks ago, has said they have already collected 900 units of blood, meaning the number of people giving blood is now up by 30 per cent compared to the old centre.
The larger and more modern centre will help to bring in new people.
Holly Mason, Deputy Regional Marketing Manager for the NHS Blood and Transplant Service.
To mark National Blood Week, ice skating legend Jayne Torvill came to the blood centre to welcome in donors.
Torvill said: “I started giving blood at the age of 18 when I lived in Nottingham until I started competing. When I came back to England I started donating again after a family member got ill and needed blood. The new blood centre has such excellent facilities and hopefully today the word will get out.”
Blood donors are massively important for people like Gemma Polmear from Ruddington. A blood transfusion saved her life after she was severely bleeding whilst giving birth to identical twins in February.
Photo: Gemma’s identical twins Holly and Mia.
Gemma said: “You never know when your going to need blood. I had never done anything dangerous or life threatening to need help before until i gave birth. I am so grateful to the people who donate for saving mine and the girls lives.”
It’s considered very important that blood donations are made in Nottingham because of the number of different ethnic minorities and the large population of young people.
Chief Executive of the NHS and blood transplant, Ian Trenholm said: “We want people from black and Asian communities to come forward so that we can give people the best blood match and meet the needs of all patients. After today we will hopefully keep getting more donors and we will fill all the beds.”
The Lord Mayor of Nottingham, Jackie Morris said: “We need to capture the young people especially the students to become blood donors as there are thousands of them in the city.”
To sign up to give blood you can visit the website www.blood.co.uk or visit the new donor centre on north church street.
