Changes to the questions asked of blood donors will ensure more gay and bisexual men are able to donate blood in the future.
Currently, men are not able to donate blood in the UK if they have had sex with another man in the past three months, in line with previous expert advice.
However, new recommendations, which the Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs (SaBTO) is satisfied will continue to ensure blood safety, mean men will no longer be automatically barred from giving blood if they have had sex with another man in the last three months.
Scotland's public health minister has said this will ensure a "fairer" assessment of risk in blood donors in a bid to ensure equality and inclusion for all.
The changes, expected to take place in 2021, mean all potential donors are to be asked additional questions about their sexual behaviours.
However, Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service (SNBTS) has made the reassurance that all information provided by donors is kept strictly in confidence.
Men who have sex with men were not able to donate blood at all in the UK until 2011 - however rules were relaxed in Scotland, England and Wales in 2017 to allow them to give blood if they had not had sex with another man in the three months prior to donating.
The further changes announced today follow recommendations by the specialist steering group for Assessment of Individualised Risk (FAIR) made up of leading medical and academic experts and LGBTI+ groups.
Public Health Minister Joe FitzPatrick said: “I welcome the recommendations of the FAIR group, which will enable a more individualised risk assessment approach to blood donor safety checks while continuing to ensure the safe supply of blood to patients.
“We are committed to equality and inclusion, and these changes will ensure a fairer and more up to date assessment of risk is applied to both men and women to identify whether donors may be at risk of a blood-borne virus infection.
“I am pleased to announce SNBTS expects to be able to implement these changes by summer 2021.
"They will be working to prepare their systems and staff for these changes and will also be working to raise awareness of the changes with existing and potential donors in advance.”
SNBTS Director Craig Spalding said: “We are proud to have been involved in the work that has been undertaken to enable the Scottish Government to make an informed decision on reviewing and changing donor eligibility requirements.
“Donor eligibility based on personal risk assessments, rather than on broader demographic information such as sexuality, is a welcome change.
“We are grateful for all the donors of Scotland and are looking forward to welcoming a broader cross section of the population, in particular those men who have sex with men who will be able to donate blood under the new criteria.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here