PEOPLE who live in Scotland are more likely to pledge to donate life-saving stem cells than those from elsewhere in the UK.

The Anthony Nolan Trust charity have produced a map of its register of potential bone marrow donors by region.

And the data shows that Scots are more likely to have pledged to donate their stem cells to a stranger than people in England.

Some 1.08 per cent of people in Scotland, a total of 57,703 potential donors, are on the Anthony Nolan register. This compares to 0.8 per cent of people in England, or 433,931 individuals.

Within Scotland, the areas with the highest proportion of donors on the Anthony Nolan register are North East Scotland and the Highlands and Islands.

At constituency level, the areas with the highest number of potential donors are Glasgow Kelvin (1,983 potential donors) and Aberdeen Central (1,878 potential donors).

Ann O'Leary, Head of Register Development at Anthony Nolan, said: "Donating stem cells to save the life of a stranger is a remarkably selfless act so it's great to see so many Scottish people signing up to our register.

"Two thirds of patients will not find a matching donor from within their families; instead they turn to Anthony Nolan to find them an unrelated donor.

"Even though Scotland has a comparatively high proportion of potential donors, that's still only just over one per cent of the overall population of Scotland. It shows us that we urgently need to recruit donors across the UK so we can give people with blood cancer the best possible chance of a cure."