Blood donation - the long road to change

By Laura Griffiths

Not only was June Pride month, it became a historic first for many of the LGBTQ+ community. Following campaigns which span multiple decades of hard work, the rule change on blood donation finally was put into practice.

The steering group FAIR (For the Assessment of Individual Risk), a collective of health organisations, universities and LGBTQ+ groups in combination with examining behavioural science and epidemiology has allowed for an inclusive approach to blood donation. This means that the opportunity to donate blood and help save lives will now be decided by an individual’s health and behavioural circumstances as opposed to the population-level restrictions that were in place.

By switching to an individual assessment, the questions about eligibility can be applied to any person regardless of how they identify or sexual choice, a milestone has been achieved for men who have sex with men.

With the HIV and AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, which had a disproportionate effect on the gay/bi male population, gay/bi donors faced a lifetime ban on blood donation.

Despite our knowledge and understanding of HIV and testing greatly increasing amongst the community, science and medical professions, the lifetime ban on blood donations for men who have sex with remained in place until 2011 when the deferral was reduced to a year. This refers to the period of time between last having sex and being able to donate blood. In 2017, this deferral period was reduced again to three months.

As a result of this landmark change this month, anyone who has had anal sex with a new or more than one partner in the last three months – regardless of their or their partner’s gender or sexuality – will be deferred for 3 months. Previously, this rule only applied to men who have sex with men.

One of the campaigners, and former SEC Newgate employee, Dan Costen whose campaign group FreedomToDonate has been working on this issue since 2015, said: “It’s absolutely brilliant news that the UK has been able to introduce a world-leading policy on blood donation. Despite understanding the reasoning, many men who have sex with men have felt anger that the only reason they could not donate was because of who they loved.

“Through our campaign we know there are thousands of gay and bi men who will now be making the life-saving act of donating blood – in fact, every year NHS Blood and Transplant need around 135,000 new donors. We hope our work will go some way to helping meet that need.”

By moving to individualised risk assessments and away from the population-level criteria, there are now potentially many thousands more male donors able to safely donate blood. This has been done while also raising the overall safety of the blood supply. And as one in 4 of us are likely to need a blood transfusion in our lifetimes, increasing the number of donors and increasing safety of donations across the board can only be a good thing.

If you would like to donate blood this summer, go to www.blood.co.uk to find your nearest donation centre.