Blood Components

Our Blood Donation and Patient Services directorates work in partnership to maintain a safe and sufficient supply of blood and its components for hospitals and patients.

NHSBT is responsible for the collection, processing, testing and issuing of blood across England and North Wales. In 2010 approximately 2 million blood donations were collected from 1.4 million donors to supply hospitals with all the blood needed for accident and emergency situations, for cancer treatments or maternity care.

We have continued to implement new standard processes at blood donor sessions helping us remain responsive to short-term changes in supply and demand. And we have continued to reduce waste and increase the opportunities to benefit donors and hospitals. This has allowed greater productivity and continuing improvements to the stability of blood stocks across all blood groups.

Blood safety remains paramount to what we do, but we are also aware of our customers' financial pressures. So in 2010/11 we worked hard to keep the cost of the price of a unit of blood at just under £125 (down from £140 in 2008/09) and have continued to examine opportunities to further reduce costs and take out over-capacity in the supply chain.