Our Future Health partners with NHS Blood and Transplant to welcome thousands of new volunteers to the programme
The UK’s largest health research programme is working with NHS Blood and Transplant to allow blood donors to join Our Future Health as part of their regular blood donation appointment. This new recruitment route aims to make it more convenient than ever for people to take part in health research.
Blood donors will be invited to take part and provided with a link to Our Future Health’s website, where they will need to complete a consent form before taking part at their NHS Blood and Transplant appointment. Donors will give blood as usual at their appointment, and a small amount of this will be separated and sent to Our Future Health.
Only donors who have completed the consent form through their invite will be able to participate in Our Future Health at their appointment.
For Our Future Health, this partnership means up to 450,000 new volunteers over the next five years, with 207 of these already booked in this week. This will provide further health data for researchers to analyse, in order to identify more effective ways of tackling diseases.
In the future, NHS Blood and Transplant will have access to donors’ blood, platelet and tissue typing genetic data collected by Our Future Health. This will allow them to better match blood, organs and stem cells for transfusions and transplants.
Dr Raghib Ali, CEO and Chief Medical Officer at Our Future Health, said:
“We’re proud to be working with NHS Blood and Transplant to provide even more ways for people across the UK to join Our Future Health in a way that is convenient for them, particularly for those who have never taken part in something like this before.
“We are looking forward to welcoming many blood donors as volunteers in the coming months, so they can find out new information about their own health, and help future generations live healthier lives for longer.”
Andrea Harmer, NHS Blood and Transplant Genomics Programme Director, said:
“We’ll be giving blood donors the option of taking part in Our Future Health by taking an extra blood sample during their donation. Their donation will not only save lives as normal but will support work to prevent and treat serious health conditions especially by finding them at an early stage.
“By working together, we can simply and efficiently help build this research programme as people give blood. NHS Blood and Transplant will also then have future access to donor’s genotyping data, which will allow us better match blood, organs, and stem cells for life saving treatments.
“Matching donors to recipient is at the core of our work and can improve patient’s lives. NHSBT will use world leading research and innovation to improve patient outcomes.”
More information about joining Our Future Health.