England Fans Encouraged To #bleedforengland

16 Sep 2015 | tshego

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England rugby legends have thrown their weight, and blood, behind a new campaign that aims to recruit 100,000 new blood donors throughout the Rugby World Cup.

The campaign is backed by the likes of former England players including Jonny Wilkinson, Martin Johnson, Ben Kay, Jason Leonard, Maggie Alphonsi and Matt Dawson.

Watch the ad at Sport Industry TV.

NHS Blood and Transplant is calling on fans to step up, with less than 3% of people aged between 17 and 70 donating blood in the past year.

The national blood donation campaign for Give Blood and NHSBT, created by Pablo London, will comprise of online films featuring a number of England stars including James Haskell, Dan Cole and Tom Croft, who gave up their day to substitute jobs with unsuspecting donors – as rugby players can not give blood themselves during the season.

Ben Kay explained: “During the Olympics – and other major sporting events – the NHS traditionally has a big drop in people registering to donate blood. You can only keep blood for 35 days, so when these big sports events come along the NHS has to work incredibly hard to get those stock levels back up.

“There are not many sports more synonymous with blood than rugby, I can immediately picture people like Brad Barritt covered in red! We talk about these players bleeding for their country, so what better way to support the team than the fans bleeding their support as well. It will help someone in need, and you never know, one day someone might do it for you.”

“Just 3% of the population are active blood donors at the moment, and we want to change that.”

Jonny Wilkinson commented: “I’ve always wanted to give back and now I’m learning about how to support that massive team that was behind us- be a link in a chain that’s going to go somewhere fabulous for someone else. Giving blood is such a great way to do that.

Jon Latham, assistant director at NHS Blood and Transplant, added: “We’re delighted that some England rugby legends have bled for England by making their first blood donations and we really hope they have inspired people in Cumbria who’ve never donated before to register to join them.

“They have shown just how easy it is to become a new blood donor. We want to see 100,000 new donors sign up to #BleedForEngland to help us meet patient needs in the future.”