Meet our team,
hear their stories

Chair

Jackie joined ESESBTA in 2021 as Chair following her retirement from 42 years in the health service. Initially, she trained as a nurse and later held a number of senior roles in NHS Lothian. Her top priority is making sure that ESESBTA continues to meet the needs of the donor community.

Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service (SNBTS) Representative

Vincent is currently Head of Donor Services, Edinburgh and South East Scotland. He’s been working for SNBTS for over 31 years, progressing through the service from procurement to finance project management and into his current role. He has a wealth of experience from across SNBTS and has worked closely with ESESBTA for many years.

Trustee

Frances joined SNBTS in 1999, initially as the Donor Recruitment and Publicity Officer on a one-year contract but ended up staying 22 years. She spent most of these years heavily involved with donors and volunteer coordinators and only retired from the service last year and, now as a trustee, is very keen to maintain the momentum she built up and reflect the needs of donors.

Life Member

Peter is a retired chartered accountant who’s had a long association with ESESBTA, dating from 1970 when he became Secretary and Treasurer. He continued in that office until he became Chairman in 1995, retiring in 2010. He remains an active member of the charity.

Life Member

Robert was persuaded to give blood in 1971 and was pronounced O.R.H. Neg and donated on a regular basis. In 1973, the Director in Inverness asked for volunteers from male O.R.H. Neg donors for his Plasmapheresis Programme.

To cut a long story short, donors were to receive a donation of Positive blood and if it reacted in the way the Director hoped the donors would produce an antibody called D. which Bob did.

Sometime later, he moved back to Edinburgh and on 8th May 1976, gave his first Plasmapheresis Donation. On Christmas Eve 1990, he gave his 600th donation, and sadly, due to the emergence of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), the UK Government stopped the collection of plasma for paresis. At that time, Bob was just short of 800 donations.