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The National Blood Service

• report (1348 Kb)
• executive summary (122 Kb)

The National Blood Service was set up in 1993 and in 1994 took over the services previously run by individual health  authorities. The service is responsible for collecting, processing, testing blood components and distributing them to hospitals.

Effective measures are now in place to ensure that blood is safe for transfusions. Our report also concluded that, despite the long time taken by the Service since its creation to make the transition from a regional to a single national service, it is now clearly doing so.

Key findings in the report are:

• There are effective measures in place to ensure that blood is safe for transfusion. The Steering Group of the Serious Hazards of Transfusion Scheme (a confidential voluntary reporting system for major transfusion events) concluded in their 1998-99 report that blood transfusion is now extremely safe. The National Blood Service has taken additional measures to reduce the theoretical risks associated with Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease.
• The Service's performance at collecting blood from donors and delivering it to hospitals is as good as, and in many areas better than, it was before its establishment as a national service. Hospitals were broadly satisfied with the service provided and the responsiveness of the organisation. The Service has taken action to secure a sufficient supply of blood.
• The Service has taken action to secure a sufficient supply of blood.In 1999-00 the Service fully met hospital demand.
• Between 1995-96 and 1998-99, the National Blood Service cut its costs by some 5.4 per cent. The Service's performance indicators have, however, a number of weaknesses.

We also identified a number of areas where the Service could build on the improvements brought about since 1993, and make the following recommendations:

• improve communication with hospitals by increasing the number it involves in clinical audits to widen the awareness of good practice, using more active ways of disseminating research findings and improving responsiveness to complaints from hospitals;
• encourage people to give blood by addressing factors that put people off giving blood, for example by reducing the time it takes to give blood and setting more demanding internal targets for the time people have to spend waiting during donor sessions;
• improve management of efficiency and effectiveness, adopting good practice across the country, making fuller use of unit cost information and benchmarking, and developing a hierarchy of performance indicators tailored for the needs of accountability, direction and management.

The response of the Service to our recommendations was very positive and it plans to encompass them in the design and implementation of its new management structures and systems.

For more information contact John Step on 020 7798 7038 or email him through our enquiries desk, please mark your email for his attention.

Experts Consulted

• NHS Executive
• NHS Trusts
• National Blood Service
• Medicines Control Agency
• Royal College of Paediatrics
• British Blood Transfusion Society
• University College London
• Woodstock Marketing
• Royal College of Physicians of London
• National Transfusion User Group
• HCA/Hospitals
• British Committee for Standards in Haematology

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