Adrian "Sudders" Sudbury campaign success

Jul 24 2009 By Katie Campling

A PILOT project to educate sixth form students about bone marrow donation has been declared a success by evaluators.

The good news comes almost a year to the day that campaigning journalist Adrian Sudbury travelled to 10, Downing Street to hand in a 13,000-signature petition asking for education about bone marrow donation to be given as standard to 17 and 18-year-olds.

Examiner journalist Adrian, 27, had battled leukaemia for two years and spent his final months campaigning to raise awareness about donation. His visit to Downing Street was less than a month before his death on August 20 last year.

His mother Kay Sudbury said: “It’s a fantastic success story. It couldn’t have gone better in a year. The evaluator was tasked with assessing the impact of the education programme.

“In that respect he has been extremely positive and that is crucial, because you can say what we wanted to achieve has been and we have exceeded the criteria that were set.

“It is for recruitment agencies to turn changed minds into people on the register. All we wanted to do was tell young people the facts and let them make their minds up.”

The pilot project – Register And Be A Lifesaver – was the result of Adrian’s Sign Up For Sudders campaign.

The Government gave £40,000 and auditing firm Baker Tilly pledged £40,000 for the pilot.

Between March and July, 65 volunteer speakers were trained to give talks about blood, bone marrow and organ donation to 17 and 18-year-olds in sixth forms and colleges.

The pilot was run by a board, working with the Anthony Nolan Trust and NHS Blood and Transplant and focused on two areas – South Yorkshire and Bristol.

A total of 61 talks were given to around 3,250 students.