1. Blood Donation – Increasing Engagement
David Speight - 14th October 2013

2. Giving Blood – The State of Play
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In the UK blood and plasma is always in
demand by the National Heath Service (NHS)
According to information on the Blood.co.uk
website this demand runs at 8,000 units
(7,000 people) per day
Current stocks in blood banks (not including
hospitals) are shown in the chart to the right
The red cells in blood have a shelf life of just
35 days and platelets just five days
Around 300,000 new donors are needed
every year
David Speight - 14th October 2013

3. Why don't more people give blood...
more often?
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Some reasons:
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No-one ever asked me/ I didn't know it was needed
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I'm too busy
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I'm afraid of needles
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And many caused by mis-information:
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I don't have the right blood type
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I don't have enough to give
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I don't want to feel weak
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I already gave once this year
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I am too old/have an illness
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I don't want to catch a disease
David Speight - 14th October 2013

4. The Underlying Issues
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The reasons given above appear to fall into two
categories:
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Lack of, or poor, information
Lack of motivation
How can we move more
people along the path to
donation?
David Speight - 14th October 2013

5. What is being done at the moment?
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A quick look online at the Blood.co.uk website reveals that there
are recent initiatives have been put in place to encourage
people to donate. These include:
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Media campaigns – National Blood Week
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TV and radio ads
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Facebook page – now with over 300,000 fans
Simple online games
Is there an additional way to increase engagement?
David Speight - 14th October 2013

6. Another Option for Engagement in
Blood Donation
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Create a new way to interact with the Blood.co.uk website and
the NHS Blood Donation Facebook page
This new way would be an interactive area – where people
could earn rewards for completing certain activities
The more they contribute the more status and rewards they
could earn
These rewards will come in the form of points, levels and status
boosts, in a similar way to the current certificates one gets for a
reaching a milestone in donations. These rewards would be
more frequent and carefully designed to encourage further
engagement
David Speight - 14th October 2013

7. Some possible activities that could be
rewarded online
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Watching a video about Blood donation
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Reading some information online
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Answering a quiz on blood facts
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Suggesting ideas for how to increase engagement further
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Liking the Facebook page
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Signing up to a newsletter
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Referring a friend
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Answering an online questionnaire
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Providing details of their organisation that may be interested in
donating blood
and many more...
David Speight - 14th October 2013

8. Why this would work (1)
Targeting Status Need
We know already that some people are motivated by the number
of donations they have made and the status rewards they
receive. These could be made use of online to help promotion
and understanding of giving blood. See these comments from
Facebook:
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“5 donations done!! Come on people, join me!!!!! Its an amazing feeling and
you get little thank you rewards as you go along. If I can do it, anyone can!!”
“There is any award 4 10th donation ?#jst asking#”
“Soon to give my 74th donantion, I know that 75 is an Emerald award but do
the still have an award ceremony for this milestone?”
“I'm really proud of my Daughter for giving blood for the first time ...She was
really happy with her 1st donation sticker that she picked up.”
David Speight - 14th October 2013

9. Why this would work (2)
Better targeting of socialisers and
information sharers
By tying actual donations with learning about and socialising the
activity of giving blood more users of the type below would be
encouraged to get involved:
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“please give blood if you are well and want to help someone else have some
life force ..... its really easy i promise , doesnt hurt ...and doesnt affect you
xxxxxxxxxxxx do it for me !!!! i keep sitting in haemotology /oncology and see
the gallons of blood helping lovelypeople have a better life ......”
“What can we do to get younger people donating? I don't know about
anywhere else but in my area (notts) there are a serious lack of donors
below 30. Personally, I don't think it is fair to keep relying on the older
generations, particularly the over 50s”
How about Halloween special..and the phlebotomist team dress up like
vampires???
David Speight - 14th October 2013

10. Overall
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Overall the effect of this new approach would be foster an
increase in engagement in blood donation. This would be done
by:
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Creating a system of activities and actions that users can
complete online
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By guiding the online engagement with appropriate rewards
and feedback this system will encourage and motivate more
users to learn, talk, persuade and hopefully donate
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The rewards for actual donations would be tied into the new
online system so that both active donors and active
socialisers and promoters all have a chance to be rewarded
in a fair way
David Speight - 14th October 2013