We have changed the way we collect donor’s tissue type from taking blood samples, to taking spit samples, to now asking people to do a cheek swab to join the stem cell register.

Whichever method you sign up by, you’ll be on our register in exactly the same way and ready to potentially save someone's life. If you signed up before then there’s no need to sign up again.

No, it won’t cost you anything. It does cost us £40 to put each person on our register, though. And that’s why we continue to raise funds, so we can continue to grow our register.

If you’re a match and come to one of our collection centres in London, Oxford, Sheffield or Manchester to donate, we’ll pay all your expenses, including travel, hotel, food and loss of earnings.

Don’t be disappointed – you can support us in lots of other ways.

It costs £40 to recruit each person to our register, so funds are vital. You could raise money for us, donate money to us or take part in a fundraising event.

You can also encourage others to join our register, especially if they’re young men.

The welfare of our donors is a top priority for us. It’s our responsibility to keep our donors fully informed and make sure they understand the commitment they’re making by joining our register.

To fulfil this responsibility, we only allow people to join if they can understand our literature and give their consent in English.

If potential donors don’t understand English, we can’t be sure they can give their informed consent if we ask them to donate. That would be a breach of our duty of care.

Young people are most likely to be chosen to donate as they are less likely to have long-term health problems which might delay or prevent donation.

Our research shows that donors aged 16–30 provide better outcomes for patients, so we focus our time, energy and money on recruiting these potential donors. It costs £40 to recruit each potential donor.

To be a donor you have to give what’s called ‘informed consent’. As stem cell donation is voluntary and not of direct benefit to the donor, a parent/guardian can’t give consent on behalf of a minor.

Someone in need of a transplant is most likely to find a match in a person with a similar genetic history. That often means someone from the same ethnic background.

People from minority ethnic backgrounds often have rarer tissue types which makes it harder to find matching donors. That means we need to recruit even more donors from minority ethnic backgrounds so they are overrepresented on the register.

This includes people from African, African-Caribbean, Asian, Chinese, Eastern European, Mediterranean and mixed race backgrounds.

Yes. Your sexuality won’t stop you joining our register. You’ll be subject to the same rules as everyone else. Find out more on our join the register page.

Young men aged 16–30 make up only 18% of our register but provide over half of all donations. We need more young men to sign up as they're underrepresented - even though hospitals are much more likely to choose them to donate.

We’re particularly keen to recruit more young men to our register, as they're more likely to be chosen to donate.

We also need more people from minority ethnic backgrounds to sign up to help give everyone an equal chance of finding a matching donor.