Each year three in ten blood cancer patients will not find the potentially life-saving bone marrow match they need, which is why Julie Penketh from Ystrad Mynach and the Welsh Blood Service are encouraging more people to join the Welsh Bone Marrow Donor Registry. Since donating her stem cells three decades ago, Julie has continued to urge others to ask to join at their blood donor sessions or by returning a home-delivered, needle-free swab-kit, which can be ordered in minutes…

Blood donors across Wales are being asked to ‘keep donating’ during the Wales-wide firebreak to help the Welsh Blood Service maintain healthy blood stocks for the NHS. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Welsh Blood Service introduced a new collections schedule where donations are taken from around five regional donation hubs across Wales each week. The regional donation hubs are at different locations every week and they have temporarily replaced the old model which involved donation sessions being offered…

Three generations of a lifesaving Pontypool family have defied the odds by each being selected to donate their life-saving bone marrow to three complete strangers thousands of miles away. Allan (65), Chris (33) and Corey Taylor (25) were all selected from the Welsh Bone Marrow Donor Registry as the only suitable matches in the world capable of saving patients from Africa, America and Europe respectively. To mark World Bone Marrow Donor Day (Saturday 19 September), the Taylor family is calling on 17-30 year olds across Wales…

Cardiff-based Funeral Arranger, Howard Provis, has celebrated his 1,000th blood donation to the Welsh Blood Transfusion Service, after donating blood over an impressive 46 years.  Six years ago, he was honoured an award on behalf of the Welsh Blood Transfusion Service for donating blood 800 times. And after reaching the 1,000th mark this month, Howard, who is a Funeral Arranger at Co-op Funeralcare in Ely, has been recognised with an extra-special celebration and a cake.  Howard said: “My father was a paramedic and a naturally selfless person who donated blood for as long as I could remember. When I was 18, he took me to donate blood for…

Loyal blood donors in Cardiff have responded to a request from the Welsh Blood Service to ‘donate differently’ by rolling up their sleeves to make a lifesaving donation at one of the Service’s new regional hubs. Across Wales, of the 6,234 individuals that visited a Welsh Blood Service donation session last month, almost two thirds (65%) of donors attended a clinic that was not their usual donation venue. In Cardiff, 820 donors came forward to give blood in April, with…