The National Blood Service - do you know what component means?

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Component donation

This all sounds very medical, doesn't it? But actually component is just a fancy way of saying "a removal from". So you can imagine what it means in the context of blood donation.

Component is a specialised service where our volunteer donors are hooked up to automated cell separator machines. What these impressively named machines do is separate the donated blood into all its various components (you know, all the platelets, red cells, plasma, white cells and such).

The clever part of it all is that it does all this during the course of the donation procedure.

So let's say, for example, there is a need for platelets. Mr or Mrs Component Donor attends his or her session at one of our permanent centres and has some whole blood extracted from one arm. The platelets are immediately separated and the red cells are returned back into the other arm. All in the space of one donation.

And because the large majority of blood components are returned, the donor can safely donate again a lot sooner than the average 16 weeks. In some cases, that can be every two weeks.

So what all this means then is that we're able to have access to blood components as and when we need them most, thanks to some very dedicated individuals.

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Blood Stocks

Birmingham donor Alan Parton is so keen to give blood that he runs eight miles to do so. Alan is dedicated to keeping fit as well as to helping others - and he combines the two by jogging to Birmingham Blood Donor Centre every time the National Blood Service asks him to donate.

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