Happy Friday 13th everyone! Here’s what we’ve been up to this week in the Digital Team…

‘save lives, give blood’ National Blood Week takes place 9 to 15 June

Saving lives by donating blood

This week (9-15 June) is known as National Blood Week, where we raise awareness of the lifesaving importance of blood donation to encourage those who have never donated to give it a go.

One million new blood donors are needed over the next five years to ensure patients continue to receive the types of blood they need. There’s a particular need for Black African, Black Caribbean and younger donors, to increase the number of donors with the rarest blood types.

In light of this, our team’s youngest member Sophie went along to a local Welsh Blood drive and donated her blood for the first time! The experience was quick and painless, and she’ll soon be contacted about her own blood type – which is currently a mystery!

What does your blood type say about you?

Whether you are A, B, AB or O, people across Wales need your blood. Certain blood types are in higher demand than others and are needed more regularly, but every donation you make can save up to three lives.

There are eight main blood types, and some rarer than others.

  • positive is the most common blood type. Around 35% of blood donors have this blood type – that’s 1 in 3 blood donors.
  • negative donors make up 13% of the donor base and are often called the ‘universal donor’ because their blood can be given to people of any blood type in an emergency.
  • Around 30% of blood donors have A positive blood.
  • 1 in 13 blood donors is A negative.
  • Only 8% of donors are B positive.
  • 2% of donors are B negative, making it one of the rarest blood types.
  • 1 in 50 blood donors is AB positive, making it very rare.
  • AB negative is the rarest of the 8 main blood groups accounting for only 1% of blood donors.

Find out more about different blood types. The fastest and simplest way to find out your blood type, is by giving blood!

Blood types and personality

Some people believe your blood type can tell you about your personality and temperament too. In Japan, it is widely believed that there is a link between human ABO blood types and personality traits.

“In this country a lot of people don’t know their blood type, whereas in Japan, many people live their lives based on it,” says Martin Maley, a senior lecturer in biomedical sciences at the University of Sunderland.

Whatever your blood type, donating blood is important! Book your next appointment to save up to three lives in just one hour.

Picture of a woman with flowers coming out her head and the title ‘New language to use around mental health’

Hannah’s certified in mental health first aid!

At the start of the week I completed a 2-day training in mental health first aid with Ajuda (via NRW). We looked at depression, anxiety, substance use disorders, psychosis and how to spot signs of someone in crisis with any of these. It was quite heavy, especially when some of had close personal experiences with some of the subject matter (as I’m sure a lot of people do, one way or another!)

We learned about appropriate language use to reduce stigma, e.g. we might not say “X suffers with mental health problems”, we might say “X experiences poor mental health” – it helps to separate the person from the illness. We did a very simple but VERY effective exercise on what it’s like for someone who hears voices to carry out everyday tasks (hint: it’s extremely difficult and tiring!) and it was emphasised that self-care is so, so important if we want to help support others with their mental health.

I think the most useful thing we learned though, was to be specific when we’re asking someone how they are. If we’re feeling capable of potentially supporting someone who’s struggling, instead of the generic “how’s it going?” we’d ask “how’s your mental health today/this week?” Or if we know they’ve been through a tough time recently, ask them specifically how they are relating to that event (e.g. how are you coping after the car accident/bereavement” etc).

Asking specific questions like that opens up a genuine conversation, which can really help someone who is struggling. But only go down that route if you’re feeling ready for it yourself. The aim is to foster an environment where it’s totally normal to ask someone about their mental health, the same way we’d check how someone’s physical health is after an operation.

Fish eating birds work

Sam, Laura, and Phil continue to improve the fish eating birds content and form. This week we have:

  • worked with subject matter experts to fact check the content pages
  • improved the content within the form Our next job is to finish the fish-eating birds work and make the content and form live. We plan to:
  • translate the content and form
  • make everything live
  • iterate as needed

Other things we’ve been working on…

  • We published a new splash and home page image on website, just in time for summer!

  • James has published a flood plan for schools. He’s also working on the approach to publishing our 2025 State of Natural Resources Report, and has been meeting with our delivery partners to discuss user research for our customer platform Beta.