There has been increased demand of O type blood from hospitals following the recent cyber-attack which has impacted London hospitals and reduced collections due to high levels of unfilled appointments at donor centres in town and city centres. This has caused stocks of blood to drop to unprecedentedly low levels.

NHS Blood and Transplant has written to hospitals to issue an `Amber Alert’ asking them to restrict the use of O type blood to essential cases and use substitutions where clinically safe to do so.

O negative and O positive donors are asked to urgently book and fill appointments at donor centres.

National stocks of O Negative are very low levels with only days of supply left.

There are over 12,000 appointments still to fill in donor centres over the next two weeks and NHS BT are urging donors to come forward to donate.

An Amber Alert is an important part of the NHS’s business continuity plan for blood stocks. It triggers hospitals being able to:

• implement their emergency measures to minimise usage;
• move staff to laboratories to vet the use of all O type blood; and 
• use patient blood management systems to minimise use of O type blood.