Blood stocks drop to ‘unprecedentedly low levels’ in England

The National Health Service (NHS) in England is appealing for people with O-type blood to donate due to blood stocks dropping to severely low levels. The shortage of this universal blood type is the result of a “perfect storm” of a lack of filled appointments at donor centres and increased demand. A cyber-attack on the pathology company Synnovis, slowed the blood typing system in major London hospitals which lead to a higher reliance on O-type blood. The NHS has also issued an amber alert to hospitals advising them to use alternative blood types where safe.