New blood donor chair designed by Renfrew Group International

24 October 2011

A new blood donor chair designed by Renfrew Group International (RGi) for NHS Blood & Transplant Service solves the problem of blood donors fainting while giving blood.

NHS BT identified a major problem associated with blood donors, as on any typical day, over 300 of them faint during the process.

The recovery position is completely different from the blood donating position and NHS B&T realised that they needed a new design of chair to take account of this.

After three years of attempting and failing to meet the need via conventional procurement, in May 2009 NHS BT approached the NHS National Innovation Centre (NIC) to help design a new donor chair that would match the newly configured Gold Standard Clinical Pathway for Blood Donation.

The result was three different SME designers who produced alternative designs, two of which were selected to progress to physical prototypes which were trialled by NHS B&T.

Now, just 18 months later, the chosen design is the subject of an OJEU published manufacturing competition for the initial production batch of chairs.

The new blood donor chair
The new blood donor chair

The new chair designed by RGi will be suitable for use with whole blood or component donation, and in all environments; including mobile sessions, donor centres and bloodmobiles.

 

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