O-type blood donors needed following London hospitals cyber-attacks

The IT incident affecting a pathology provider means the affected hospitals cannot currently match patients’ blood at the same frequency as usual.

Last week several hospitals declared a critical incident following a ransomware attack believed to be carried out by a Russian group of cyber criminals known as Qilin.

The attack which impacted Kings College Hospital Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals Foundation Trusts led to hospitals cancelling operations and tests and being unable to carry out blood transfusions.

Now NHS Blood Transplant is calling for O Positive and O Negative blood donors to donate in one of the 25 town and city centre NHS Blood Donor Centres in England to boost stocks.

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For surgeries and procedures requiring blood to take place, hospitals need to use O type blood as this is safe to use for all patients and blood has a shelf life of 35 days, so stocks need to be continually replenished, an NHS spokesperson said.

That means more units of these types of blood than usual will be required over the coming weeks to support the wider efforts of frontline staff to keep services running safely for local patients.

O negative is the type that can be given to anyone – known as the universal blood type. It is used in emergencies or when a patient’s blood type is unknown. Air ambulances and emergency response vehicles carry O negative supplies. 

Just 8% of the population have type O Negative but it makes up for around 15% of hospital orders.

O positive is the most common blood type – 35% of donors have it – and it can be given to anybody with any positive blood type. 

This means three in every four people, or 76% of the population, can benefit from an O positive donation.

This National Blood Week it has been revealed that three blood donations are needed every minute in hospitals and there are about 13,000 appointments available nationally this week in NHS Blood Donor Centres with 3,400 available in London.

Dr Gail Miflin, Chief Medical Officer, NHS Blood and Transplant said:“Patient safety is our absolute priority. When hospitals do not know a patient’s blood type or cannot match their blood, it is safe to use O type blood.

“To support London hospitals to carry out more surgeries and to provide the best care we can for all patients, we need more O Negative and O Positive donors than usual. Please book an urgent appointment to give blood at one of our 25 town and city donor centres which currently have good appointment availability.

 “We have availability for donors who know they are type O but we also welcome new donors who don’t yet know their blood type. You might have one of these special types that can be used in emergencies.”