Make a date to donate in National Blood Week

This year's National Blood Week runs from 10-16 June 2013. This annual campaign aims to recruit much-needed new donors and highlight the life-changing treatments and surgeries that donated blood helps to make possible.

National Blood Week was launched in 2011 when a hugely successful week saw more than 10,000 people across England and North Wales 'make a date to donate'. Singers Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Jenny Frost gave their support to the campaign by giving blood.

In 2012 new and existing donors were encouraged to 'roll their sleeves up' like Made in Chelsea's Rosie Fortescue and give blood before the summer's Olympic Games. A series of flash mobs and other celebration events took place across the week and over 2,000 people signed up to give blood.

10-16 June 2013

To maintain blood stocks we need a staggering 225,000 new donors every year.

Jon Latham, Assistant Director of Marketing at NHSBT says: "This year we are trying to tell people a lot more about the importance of blood donation around the theme of 'Know Blood, Give Blood'. We are trying to recruit 10,000 new donor registrants over the week who will become the blood of the future."

World Blood Donor Day

Falling within National Blood Week is World Blood Donor Day on 14 June; the birthday of Nobel Prize winner Dr Karl Landsteiner who discovered the ABO blood grouping system. Supported by the World Health Organization, this is a wonderful opportunity to raise awareness of the importance of blood donation and thank blood donors around the globe and encourage others to join them.

Click here to find out where you can give blood in Plymouth over the coming months.