FAIR Blood donor survey

The Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service (SNBTS) is rolling out a new confidential online survey today, to find out what donors feel about the healthcheck questionnaire.

Since 2021, UK blood services have asked some new questions, including around sexual experiences. This approach was recommended by the ‘For the Assessment of Individualised Risk’ (FAIR) steering group. Answering these questions before giving blood makes a big difference to donor and patient safety.

Carried out in collaboration with the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), and the University of Nottingham (UoN), the survey aims to understand what blood donors think about the questions they were asked when they come to donate, and how the questions are working to keep the blood supply safe. A random sample of donors who have donated in the past 4 to 8 weeks (ie from 1st June onwards) have been invited to take part in the survey.

The survey asks questions about donors’ experiences, including:

• health and lifestyle
• sexual behaviours
• why they choose to donate
• views on the change to more individualised donor selection policy

Donors across the UK and Republic of Ireland are being invited to take part in the survey using the link emailed to them by their blood service. This link takes them to the survey hosted by UKHSA. UKHSA have not been given any personal identifiable details about the donors and will not ask for them in the survey. The responses to the survey are confidential and cannot be used to identify responders in any way. The survey takes around 10 minutes to complete.

The survey will not retain any computer IP addresses (the code that identifies a particular computer on the internet). The internet browser will not retain the survey answers. We ask that donors complete the survey in one go, as responses can’t be saved and returned to later.

Donors must formally agree to participate before they can start to answer the survey questions. Once submitted, survey responses cannot be removed or amended as the survey team will not be able to identify answers from individual donors.

By taking this survey donors agree to their survey responses being stored by UK Health Security Agency for analysis by the study team. The results of the survey will be published as group data – meaning individual answers will not be shown, only information about the whole survey group or subgroups. No information that could identify individuals will ever be published. Data will be shared with the University of Nottingham for some of the analysis in a form that does not identify an individual or link them to their donor record. Responses are stored on secure computer systems and only seen by authorised staff.

Participation is entirely voluntary, and individuals may withdraw at any time without providing a reason. However, once submitted, we will not be able to remove survey responses from our data as we will not be able to identify individual answers.

SNBTS are grateful to all donors who participate in this survey.

• Find out more about the survey at UK blood donor survey overview - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

• If you have any questions about the survey please email the donor survey team at donorsurvey@ukhsa.gov.uk quoting "Scotland"