A DECISION by National Health Service chiefs to end blood donor sessions in settle has been branded 'short-sighted'.

The NHS Blood and Transplant Service has said the next session in the town, scheduled for May 23 at St John's Methodist Church, will be the last.

Officials have decided to pull the plug to lower costs for the health service. The nearest sessions will now take place at Skipton and Ingleton, meaning a round trip for donors from Settle of between 25 and 30 miles.

Donor Tracey Stewart, of Craven Terrace, said she was 'very annoyed' about the decision.

She added: "I have been giving blood for more than 20 years and I consider it an honour to do so.

"This is not fair to a rural community like Settle. Giving blood is obviously something to be encouraged, so it seems wrong to make it much more difficult to do so. Instead of popping in for 20 minutes or so, we will now have to take half-a-day to give blood.

"I was only told about this by staff when I was at the most recent session. There has been no consultation and no warning. If it was the closure of a library, for example, you'd get the chance to organise against it, but we can't do anything. It seems so short-sighted. People don't give blood for their own benefit. It's to help others."

Tracey said she had contacted the blood and transplant service to ask why the decision was taken, and was told it 'was not cost effective' to keep the Settle sessions going.

Dean Neill, head of Region North for NHS Blood and Transplant, said staff understood the disappointment of people in the town.

"We have made this change as we regularly review our session programme to ensure we collect enough blood to meet patients’ needs, while not wasting precious donations," he added.

"The demand for blood from hospitals has been dropping by about four per cent each year for the past few years. This is due to improvements in clinical and surgical practice and our own efforts to ensure that blood is used appropriately and only where necessary in hospitals.

"It's also very important we collect blood efficiently and effectively so we can keep the costs for the NHS as low as possible. The venue we used in Settle took a significant amount of time for our team to travel to, which reduced our hours of operation and the amount of blood we were able to collect."