NHS Blood and Transplant is an executive special health authority of the United Kingdom's Department of Health and Social Care. It was established on 1 October 2005 to take over the responsibilities of two separate NHS agencies: UK Transplant (now renamed Organ Donation and Transplantation), founded by Dr. Geoffrey Tovey in 1972,[2] and the National Blood Service[3] (now renamed Blood Donation). Its remit is to provide a reliable, efficient supply of blood, organs and associated services to the NHS. Since NHSBT was established, the organisation has maintained or improved the quality of the services delivered to patients, stabilised the rising cost of blood, and centralised a number of corporate services.
It has the responsibility for optimising the supply of blood, organs and tissues and raising the quality, effectiveness and efficiency of blood and transplant services. Its roles are stated to include:[citation needed]
encouraging people to donate organs, blood and tissues
optimising the safety and supply of blood, organs and tissues (within the NHS)
helping to raise the quality, effectiveness and clinical outcomes of NHS blood and transplant services
providing expert advice to other NHS organisations, the Department of Health, Ministers and devolved administrations
providing appropriate advice and support to health services in other countries
commissioning and conducting research and development
actively engaging in implementing relevant EU statutory frameworks and guidance
being involved in broader international developments
In 2009/10 its strategic objectives were focused on the efficient provision of a safe and sustainable supply of blood and its components, the identification and referral of more organ donors and the establishment of NHSBT as an effective and responsive organisation, focused on the needs of donors and patients. The year saw a record high in organ donation and transplantation together with an increase in the number of people signing up to donate blood.[4]
Information technology
The Core System Modernisation Programme which was meant to modernise the organisation’s information technogy systems was abandoned in 2018 with costs of £26 million written off.[5]
The National Blood Service was formed in 1946 as the National Blood Transfusion Service of England and Wales (NBTS). The National Blood Authority was established as a Special Health Authority in 1993 and assumed control of the 12 English Regional Transfusion Centres in 1994. The National Blood Service became a nationally coordinated body in 1996. The service operates out of fifteen centres, and collects around 2.1 million donations per year and supplies 8,000 units of blood every day. Service directors proposed a reconfiguration and centralisation strategy in 2006, based on the closure of most local processing and testing labs, and subsequent operation out of just three large 'supercentres' to serve the same geographical area.[6] Staff opposed this strategy,.[7] In July 2015 it was decided to shut the blood supply chain manufacturing facilities in Sheffield and Newcastle in 2017 and transfer their work to Manchester.[8]
Blood donation vehicles are allowed the use of blue lights and sirens (known commonly "blues and twos") for the use of emergency blood transports. In some cases this will also require the use of a police escort for the transporting vehicle in order to safely and quickly navigate major road junctions. Escort is normally provided by several motorbike units.
The service depends entirely on voluntary donations from the public. Originally, blood was collected from various donor clinics located over the country. In 1994, the first mobile session was held in Elstree, hosted by The Joely Bear Appeal. In the South West from 1946 and since the formation of the NHS the service was primarily a mobile collection service visiting all parts of the mainly rural community. Originally Local Organisers called up the Donors from their own lists; this only changed in the 1990s. This link with the Local Organisers was inherited from the Wartime Red Cross (mainly) and St. Johns blood collection teams. These mobile teams continue to collect, but two centres – Bristol and Plymouth (Derriford) – have static bases in local venues. Currently, blood donation sessions are set up throughout the country and take place in many diverse venues, from village halls, workplaces and mobile collection units (known as Bloodmobiles). Donors are generally required to be fit and healthy, weigh 50 kilograms (110lb; 7st 12lb) and aged between 17 and 60. However, regular (healthy) donors are permitted to donate past the age of 60 as long as they remain healthy. Donors are encouraged to give blood up to three times a year (once every 16 weeks). Since February 2012, male donors have been allowed to donate up to four times a year.[9] In 2013–14 1,986 people complained they had been turned away from walk-in sessions. 1,949 said they did not have their blood taken even when they had made an appointment.[10]
Besides the main blood donations, known as "whole blood", platelets are also collected. As platelets can only be stored for a few days, regular and frequent donors are in great demand and that is why platelet donors are asked to attend at least 8–10 times per year.
Organ Donation and Transplantation
UK Transplant offices in north Bristol
Organ Donation and Transplantation ensures that organs donated for transplant are matched and allocated to patients in a fair and unbiased way. Matching, particularly in the case of kidneys, is so important that donation and allocation needs to be organised nationally. The larger the pool of organs, the better the likelihood there is of a good match. Unlike some other NHS organisations, it does not have a direct relationship with patients and do not provide "hands on" care. However, in providing support to transplantation services across England, everything it does affects the quality of service delivered to individual patients.[citation needed]
In the 1968 National Tissue Typing and Reference Laboratory was established at Southmead Hospital in Bristol. The National Organ Matching and Distribution Service was founded in 1972 and the two organisations merged in 1979 to form the UK Transplant Service.[citation needed]
In 1991 the UK Transplant Service became an NHS special health authority and was renamed the United Kingdom Transplant Support Service Authority. It moved to purpose-built accommodation at Stoke Gifford, in the northern suburbs of Bristol, in 1993. In July 2000, UK Transplant was formed with a new, extended remit to increase organ donation rates. In October 2005 UK Transplant merged with the National Blood Service and the Bio Products Laboratory to form NHS Blood and Transplant.[citation needed]
In 2010, the Bio Products Laboratory became a limited company owned directly by the Department of Health. The Department of Health partly privatised it in 2013, selling a significant majority stake to Bain Capital. The business benefited from investment and growth, enabling full privatisation, achieved when a group controlled by Creat Group Corporation acquired it in 2016.
NHS Organ Donor Register
The NHS Organ Donor Register is a national, confidential list of people who are willing to become donors after their death. It can be quickly accessed to see whether an individual has registered a willingness to be an organ donor.[citation needed]
Filton Blood Centre
NHSBT operates the largest blood processing facility in Europe, capable of processing 1 million units a year.[11][12] The site also houses the International Blood Group Reference Laboratory, one of the world’s leading laboratories in rare blood identification.[13]
Notes
1 2 "Meet our board". nhsbt.nhs.uk. NHS Blood and Transplant. Retrieved 4 April 2024.
↑ "A history of donation, transfusion and transplantation". NHS Blood and Transplant. Retrieved 10 April 2020. NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) is formed as the National Blood Service and UK Transplant merge. The National Blood Transfusion Service, created in 1946, became the National Blood Service in 1996
↑ "The future of blood"(PDF). The Biomedical Scientist. March 2009. p.218. Archived from the original(PDF) on 20 August 2016. Retrieved 19 August 2016.
↑ "History". NHS Blood and Transplant. Retrieved 19 August 2016.
Organ donation is the process when a person authorizes an organ of their own to be removed and transplanted to another person, legally, either by consent while the donor is alive, through a legal authorization for deceased donation made prior to death, or for deceased donations through the authorization by the legal next of kin.
Blood transfusion is the process of transferring blood products into a person's circulation intravenously. Transfusions are used for various medical conditions to replace lost components of the blood. Early transfusions used whole blood, but modern medical practice commonly uses only components of the blood, such as red blood cells, white blood cells, plasma, platelets, and other clotting factors.
Transfusion medicine is the branch of medicine that encompasses all aspects of the transfusion of blood and blood components including aspects related to hemovigilance. It includes issues of blood donation, immunohematology and other laboratory testing for transfusion-transmitted diseases, management and monitoring of clinical transfusion practices, patient blood management, therapeutic apheresis, stem cell collections, cellular therapy, and coagulation. Laboratory management and understanding of state and federal regulations related to blood products are also a large part of the field.
A blood donation occurs when a person voluntarily has blood drawn and used for transfusions and/or made into biopharmaceutical medications by a process called fractionation. Donation may be of whole blood, or of specific components directly (apheresis). Blood banks often participate in the collection process as well as the procedures that follow it.
Plateletpheresis is the process of collecting thrombocytes, more commonly called platelets, a component of blood involved in blood clotting. The term specifically refers to the method of collecting the platelets, which is performed by a device used in blood donation that separates the platelets and returns other portions of the blood to the donor. Platelet transfusion can be a life-saving procedure in preventing or treating serious complications from bleeding and hemorrhage in patients who have disorders manifesting as thrombocytopenia or platelet dysfunction. This process may also be used therapeutically to treat disorders resulting in extraordinarily high platelet counts such as essential thrombocytosis.
Canadian Blood Services is a non-profit charitable organization that is independent from the Canadian government. The Canadian Blood Services was established as Canada's blood authority in all provinces and territories except for Quebec in 1998. The federal, provincial and territorial governments created the Canadian Blood Services through a memorandum of understanding. Canadian Blood Services is funded mainly through the provincial and territorial governments.
In England, blood and other tissues are collected by NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT). NHSBT Blood Donation was previously known as the National Blood Service until it merged with UK Transplant in 2005 to form a NHS special health authority. Other official blood services in the United Kingdom include the Northern Ireland Blood Transfusion Service, the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service and the Welsh Blood Service.
Australian Red Cross Lifeblood, simply known as Lifeblood, is a branch of the Australian Red Cross responsible for the collection and distribution of blood and biological products in Australia. Lifeblood employs around 3,700 employees across scientific, clinical and support services, processing over one and a half a million blood donations each year. Lifeblood is primarily funded by the Australian Government and state and territory governments.
Transfusion-associated graft-versus-host disease (TA-GvHD) is a rare complication of blood transfusion, in which the immunologically competent donor T lymphocytes mount an immune response against the recipient's lymphoid tissue. These donor lymphocytes engraft, recognize recipient cells as foreign and mount an immune response against recipient tissues. Donor lymphocytes are usually identified as foreign and destroyed by the recipient's immune system. However, in situations where the recipient is severely immunocompromised, or when the donor and recipient HLA type is similar, the recipient's immune system is not able to destroy the donor lymphocytes. This can result in transfusion associated graft-versus-host disease. This is in contrast with organ/tissue transplant associated GvHD, where matching HLA reduces the incident of the complication.
The European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines & HealthCare (EDQM) is a Directorate and partial agreement of the Council of Europe that traces its origins and statutes to the Convention on the Elaboration of a European Pharmacopoeia.
The Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service (SNBTS) is the national blood, blood product and tissue provider. It makes up a Strategic Business Unit of NHS National Services Scotland (NSS).
The New Zealand Blood Service is the provider of blood services for New Zealand. The service is a Crown entity responsible to New Zealand's Parliament and is governed by a Board appointed by the Minister of Health.
Many countries have laws, regulations, or recommendations that effectively prohibit donations of blood or tissue for organ and corneal transplants from men who have sex with men (MSM), a classification irrespective of their sexual activities with same-sex partners and of whether they identify themselves as bisexual or gay. Temporary restrictions are sometimes called "deferrals", since blood donors who are found ineligible may be found eligible at a later date. However, many deferrals are indefinite meaning that donations are not accepted at any point in the future, constituting a de facto ban. Even men who have monogamous relations with their same-sex partners are found ineligible.
Sikander Ali Malik is a British actor who plays Asa (Acer) Anwar in the BBC One drama Doctors and is best known for portraying Jamil Fadel in the soap operas Hollyoaks, Hollyoaks Later and the online prequel Hollyoaks: Freshers.
The South African National Blood Service (SANBS) is a non-profit organisation that provides human blood for transfusion that operates in South Africa, with the exception of the Western Cape, which has its own blood service. The head office of the SANBS is in Constantia Kloof, Gauteng, near Johannesburg, but there are blood collection operations in eight of the nine provinces. Western Cape has a separate blood centre, the Western Cape Blood Service. SANBS was founded in 2001 from a merger of seven blood centres, and was embroiled in controversy in 2004 over a policy of racial profiling for blood safety.
The MSM blood donor controversy in the United Kingdom refers to the former deferral policy of men who have had sex with men (MSM) in the United Kingdom who wish to donate their blood to UK blood donation services. Since June 2021, there is no deferral period in all four home nations. This followed an announcement in December 2020 that blood donation policies specific to MSM would be scrapped in favour of personalised risk assessment based on sexual behaviour.
The Welsh Blood Service is a division of Velindre University NHS Trust responsible for the collection of blood in Wales, and of the distribution of blood products to hospitals within the country, as well as other related functions.
Blood donations in India are conducted by organisations and hospitals through blood donation camps. Donors can also visit blood banks in hospitals to donate blood. Efforts by the government and advocacy groups over the years have helped bridge the gap between demand and supply. The regulatory framework for blood donation and blood bank management rests with the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation, while technical bodies like the National Blood Transfusion Council and National AIDS Control Organisation formulate guidelines and recommendations for transfusion medicine and blood bank management. Challenges persist with regards to regulation of blood banks and transfusion practices as the sector is largely fragmented with uneven distribution of blood banks and supply of blood in parts of the country. Donors are usually provided with refreshments after the procedure, which include glucose drinks, biscuits and fruits. Some organisations offer transportation facilities, as well as certificates or badges as gratitude.
NHSBT Blood Donation is responsible for the collection and distribution of blood products within England. Other parts of the United Kingdom are served by the Northern Ireland Blood Transfusion Service, the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service, and the Welsh Blood Service. Blood Donation is part of NHS Blood and Transplant, which was established as a special health authority in October 2005 and also has responsibility for NHSBT Organ Donation and Transplantation.
The Iranian Blood Transfusion Organization or acronymly IBTO is the highest and only decision-making authority in the field of supply and distribution of healthy blood and blood products in Iran. This organization was established in July 31, 1974.
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