Socially distant, still saving lives...
We’re looking forward to welcoming you to our blood donor sessions on Sunday 15th November.
We are pleased to again be holding two sessions: one at Borehamwood & Elstree Synagogue and one at Edgware Blood Donor Centre. There are still some appointments available at Edgware - click here to book yours.
We are committed to providing a family-friendly community blood donor session as we have done for the last 25 years. However, we are equally committed to ensuring a safe event given the current pandemic; as such we will have the following changes to our normal set-up for this coming session:
There are not allowed to be any walk-in appointments during the day. You must have pre-booked in order to donate. Appointments are easy to make - you can make yours in seconds at www.joelybear.org.uk/booking.
We’d usually invite you to attend Joely Bear blood days with your friends and family, however please help us to keep this session safer by coming to donate alone. Where possible, please arrange for your children and other family members to stay at home.
If you have booked appointments together so that you can attend our session as a family, please get in touch and we may be able to move your appointments around.
Please only bring children if you are unable to make other childcare provisions - however they will need to stay with you whilst you are at the session. We will not be running a crèche at this session.
Please bring a face covering with you to the donation session. If you attend without a face covering, you will be provided with a mask. You will not be permitted to step into the venue without a face covering. Whilst you are actually donating, you may be allowed to remove your face covering however it should remain in place at all other times whilst inside the donation venue.
Following current NHSBT social distancing guidance, we are spacing the donors and staff where possible 2 metres. There are areas (screening booths and donating chairs) where this is not possible. The risk of infection will be minimised as all staff are wearing masks and donors will be asked to wear a covering on their face as enclosed space where social distancing is not always possible. Hand-washing stations will be available throughout the course of the course of your donation.
We are always grateful to our 70+ volunteers that have supported each of our sessions for the last 25 years. In order to accommodate the strict social distancing measures, we will have a minimum number of volunteers at this session. Full information has been sent out to all our volunteers. If you’d like to join the volunteering rota, please email volunteers@joelybear.org.uk.
Many of these have been difficult decisions to make and go against the overriding ethos of what we aim for a Joely Bear blood donor session to be. Thank you for helping us to keep the session safe and responsible - we promise to bring things back to normal as soon as we can!
Thank you,
The Joely Bear Appeal.
More information is available on the NHS Blood & Transplant website.