BLOOD from 2,500 donors had to be thrown away after Southampton's blood refrigeration system broke down.

The donations were discarded when the refrigeration plant at the city's National Blood Service depot failed for four days.

The blood had to be thrown out because it no longer met the National Blood Service's health and safety guidelines.

With one unit of blood costing £150 to process, the loss will have cost the service about £375,000.

The National Blood Service has maintained that patients and services in Southampton were not affected.

However Hampshire's blood donors have described the fridge failure as an "absolute tragedy".

The problems began at the National Blood Service's centre based at Southampton General Hospital on Monday, April 28. The refrigeration unit was then out of order for four days.

Ruth Greenaway, spokeswoman for the National Blood Service in the south, said: "Due to a problem with the refrigeration plant, we were unable to issue red blood cells from our Southampton centre last week.

"The supply of platelets and other products was unaffected and normal service for red blood cells was resumed on Friday.

"Our overriding priority is ensuring the safety of the blood on which patients depend.

"Quality regulations stipulate that blood must be stored between two and six degrees Celsius.

"The 2,500 red cells held at the Southampton centre at the time of the problem with the refrigeration plant breached our rigorous quality standards and therefore had to be discarded.

"We should emphasise that the regular maintenance checks carried out across all our centres make events such as this a very rare occurrence."

Dedicated blood donor Barry Foot, of Watton Road, Holbury, criticised the service for allowing the blood to go to waste.

The 67-year-old, who has given 101 units of blood, said: "For this to happen is an absolute tragedy.

"I would have thought there would have been a back-up fridge they could use - four days is just too long. Now we need even more help to try to replace the lost blood."

Mrs Greenaway added: "No patients were affected by this event. We have contingency plans to ensure hospitals continue to be supplied with blood as and when they need it.

"These were put into effect on discovery of the problem, with emergency deliveries continuing from our Southampton centre throughout this period."