Turning national donor guidance into a decision in seconds
The guidance that decides who can give blood in Scotland, searchable at the donor chair, with the deferral date calculated, not looked up.
Year
2025
Services
Web app
Sector
Healthcare
Type
Web
The outcome
Two national guidance sets unified in one tool: MED 023 and the Donor Selection Guidelines
Live across Scottish donor sessions, replacing a document search with a search box.
The challenge
The answer existed. Finding it didn't.
Whether someone can donate blood depends on national guidance that runs to hundreds of entries – medications, travel, procedures, tattoos, each with its own deferral period and its own exceptions. That guidance is authoritative, versioned and clinically governed. It was also a document.
At the donor chair, a nurse needs one answer: can this person give today, and if not, when. Getting there meant knowing which guidance set applied, finding the right entry, reading the qualifying questions, then counting forward from a date in their head. It works, but it is slow, it varies between people, and it puts the arithmetic in the least convenient place.
Zudu's role:
Product design and build
Duration:
10 months
The platform
From guidance to an answer
Two national guidance sets behind one search - with the qualifying questions and the deferral arithmetic built into the tool rather than left to the clinician.
Two national guidance sets, one door. MED 023 and the Donor Selection Guidelines behave the same way from here on.
Four letters is enough. Results come back grouped by what they are - a procedure, a country, a medication - so the nurse picks, rather than reads.
The qualifying questions, the deferral code, and the date itself - calculated from the donor's own dates rather than counted forward by hand.
01 · Search
One unified index
Medications, travel destinations and medical procedures sit in a single index, matched as you type and grouped on return, so nobody has to know which document an answer lives in.
02 · Decision
Guided deferral logic
Each entry carries its own qualifying questions and deferral rule. The tool asks only what it needs, returns the deferral code and the date the donor can come back, and keeps the clinical rationale one tap away.
03 · Governance
Versioned clinical content
Versioned guidance sets, a changelog and clear provenance on every entry, so the content stays the property of the clinical team and every change is traceable.
The results
Same guidance, faster and more consistent
Helped NHS Scotland modernise the CMS behind its national donor eligibility guidance, turning a reference document into a tool that answers the question actually being asked at the donor chair.
Status: Live
Every entry
manual counting
Carries its own deferral rule and return date
Stack & deliverables
CMS modernisationRecent searchesRules-based deferral calculationTypeahead search across a governed content setVersioned guidance & changelog
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