I READ that blood donor numbers have fallen 40 per cent in the last decade and that 204,000 new donors are needed this year to keep up supplies.

Seemingly only four per cent of eligible people come forward.

If my experience is typical, then the Blood Transfusion Service is itself partly responsible for this situation.

In 1996 I was injured in a road accident. I was (and still am) extremely grateful to the donors who supplied nine units for me on that day while I was being patched up – so much so, that I resolved to become a donor.

I managed four donations before being blacklisted in the CJD ban.

Of those four, two were workplace donations but two were under the then 'drop-in' system at Lydney Town Hall.

On one occasion, I 'dropped-in' after work and could have put a note on my chair, gone home for my tea and returned to claim my place in the queue.

I cannot find out if I am still blacklisted – ie is the CJD ban still in being?

Despite being a card-carrying donor, I never receive any communication in any form from the service to advise me of donating sessions and/or making an appointment.

So the service is apparently seeking additional donors while never contacting a registered, fit, healthy, not on medication, definitely without CJD, 63-year-old donor full of A negative who is willing to give them some.

Hopefully, there exists someone connected with the service in your readership who can, through the Review, help me rectify this situation.

– W Wylde, Whitecroft.