EAST Lancashire’s health problems are well documented and now the NHS has issued a warning over low blood stocks.

In this area there are serious issues with heart disease, lung disease and other major conditions.

Patients need blood for vital treatments every day, so it is exceptionally important for new donors, who feel well and meet blood donor selection rules, to come forward now. Blood donation saves lives.

In East Lancashire there is a large Asian community.

But NHS figures show that only one per cent of the south Asian community actually donates blood.

Specific blood groups are more common amongst people from the south Asian communities and certain medical conditions requiring regular blood transfusions also have higher prevalence within these communities.

Salim Mulla, from the Lancashire Council of Mosques, has long campaigned to improve both blood and organ donations.

But it is not just the Asian community.

We all have a duty but so few actually give blood.

Nationally only five per cent of people do so.

Make it your New Year’s Resolution to give blood. Because the chances are that at some point you, or someone you care about, will need a blood transfusion.