Inverness Donor Centre needs your business

Could your company help save lives? Inverness Donor Centre, based at Raigmore Hospital, is actively seeking to welcome employees from local companies as part of their corporate blood donation programme.

The Centre would love to invite organisations from the Inverness area to get involved, and help you organise workforce donation sessions at the donor centre.

Each donation can help save or improve the lives of up to three people in Scotland. This means your group or company could make a massive contribution to NHS Scotland this winter.

'It's so humbling to know every donation we've secured has potentially saved or improved lives,' Ewen MacBean, Manager at PureGym Inverness explains. 'It feels absolutely awesome to know that as a team we’ve been able to get together and help so many others.'

Last week, the team at Inverness PureGym donned Give Blood t-shirts, set up display stands on-site at the gym and raised awareness of the urgent need for new blood donors in the area. Inverness Donor Centre needs to welcome at least 160 donors through its doors every single week to help support Scotland's patients.

Ewen continued, 'The booking process was really easy to arrange and the prospect of coming along together as a group created a real buzz around the gym.

'Genuinely, we all feel great about having made such a difference. I’d tell anyone thinking of organising a group donation, or even just coming along to give blood for the first time themselves, to just go for it.'

Also making an impact on the lives of others are local construction company, Morgan Sindall, who have also set up their own blood drive. Commercial Manager Andrew Taylor explains, 'There wasn’t anything in particular that prompted us to give blood, more a collection of individual circumstances.

'My wife was a regular donor and convinced me to start donating about 10 years ago. Back then I started with the intention of visiting as regularly as I could but after stopping for what was supposed to be a very short period due to taking medication, life got in the way, and I failed to return.'

Andrew continued, 'After chatting with a colleague in a similar position, we realised we shared common ground in that blood donors in Scotland had impacted on both our family's lives. My wife needed blood after the birth of our son in 2020 and my colleague’s family had a very similar experience.

It's so humbling to know every donation we've secured has potentially saved or improved lives. It feels absolutely awesome to know that as a team we’ve been able to get together and help so many others. Ewen MacBean, PureGym Inverness

'After discussing our experiences, it seemed so apparent that such a simple thing can make such a huge difference to someone else out there. We decided to start our own company donation drive and promote what we were doing to the rest of our colleagues. Most of them said that they'd love to join in but just needed the push to do it. We've had brilliant support from our workplace and even created our own in office 'bloodometer' to track our donations.

'The whole process of arranging the group donations is so easy. It's simple to arrange and attending as a group helps to convince people that otherwise wouldn't have donated to make the effort. I'd say to anyone thinking of becoming a donor or who hasn't been in a while to please donate. You get to lie back on a recliner for 10-15 minutes and you get to have biscuits or cake and juice afterwards.

'Personally, it's so good to do our bit to support. Especially given the impact blood donors in Scotland have had on our lives personally.'

Booking your group donation is really easy to organise. Donor Centre staff will work with you toorganise specific time slots especially for your employees... and, of course, make sure there are plenty biscuits afterwards.

Thank you to Ewen, Andrew and the teams from PureGym and Morgan Sindall for their booking their donations at Inverness Donor centre and encouraging others to do the same.

• Are you keen to arrange a group booking with your colleagues? Contact us online or give us a call on 0345 90 90 999 (Mon-Fri 9am till 5pm) to find out more