Casualty Christmas Special

This Christmas, BBC’s Casualty – the world’s longest-running prime time medical drama – is shining a spotlight on blood donation with a special episode airing Saturday 21 December on iPlayer at 06:00 hrs and on BBC 1 at 21:20 Hrs.

Inspired by the constant need for blood across the NHS, the episode focuses on the lifesaving impact of blood donors. The episode, titled ‘All I Want for Christmas’, comes eagerly anticipated, following the BAFTA-winning ‘How to Save a Life’, a special episode to mark the 75^th anniversary of the NHS.

‘All I Want for Christmas’ blends a series of fictional stories with true accounts from people whose lives have been impacted by blood donations across the UK.

The Welsh Blood Service helped producers of Casualty with their research for the special episode.

Our HQ in Talbot Green also received a visit from Casualty’s production team and filming crew as one of our mobile donation vehicles was selected as the filming location for the opening sequence of the episode with lead actress, Elinor Lawless.

If you haven’t already, you can watch the trailer of Casualty’s Christmas episode below.

This is one of the many initiatives we have been working on this festive season including our ‘Seeing Is Believing’ campaign where donors will begin receiving messages when their donations are issued to Welsh hospitals to help outline the real-life need of these vital donations every day.

The campaign also features the story of Rebecca Park and her son, Luca who received lifesaving blood and platelet donations during his chemotherapy treatment for cancer. You can read more about Luca’s story here.