Chief Medical Officer, Dr Gail Miflin, recognised for services to blood and plasma in New Year’s Honours

Dr Gail Miflin NHS Blood and Transplant’s (NHSBT) Chief Medical Officer, Dr Gail Miflin, has been awarded an OBE in the New Year’s Honours list for services to blood and plasma.

Dr Miflin has been Chief Medical Officer since 2016 and, in her time at NHSBT, has led groundbreaking research into new treatments that are saving and improving lives and tackling health inequalities.

Key pieces of work that led to the recognition include:

Setting up the framework to collect and deliver the first global large scale trial into convalescent plasma (the antibody rich plasma of someone who has recovered from an infectious disease) as a treatment for Covid-19. The trial, which was delivered at pace during the height of the Pandemic, found that overall, it was not effective, enabling researchers to pivot to exploring other potential lifesaving treatments. While not effective for Covid-19, this work led to the setting up of collecting plasma for medicines.
Supporting the UK to launch its plasma for medicines programme - collecting plasma (55 per cent of a person’s blood) for the first time in a quarter of a century to make lifesaving medicines. Dr Miflin played a vital part to get to a new regulatory landscape for UK plasma ensuring the NHS met European safety requirements and supported the building of a collection and supply chain from scratch. The first UK medicines made from UK plasma will be given to NHS patients in early 2025.
Championing better equity in the provision of matched blood components for transfusion – particularly for ethnically matched blood for the treatment of sickle cell and thalassemia, diseases that predominantly affect Black and Asian communities. NHSBT’s cutting-edge Genomics programme is working closely with NHS England to deliver its commitment to genotype all sickle cell and thalassemia patients for better matched blood components. For thousands of people with inherited blood conditions this will mean better-matched blood transfusions, reducing the risk of side effects and offering more personalised care.

Other recent projects within Gail’s team at NHSBT include:

The Therapeutic Apheresis Unit in Leeds supporting a double hand transplant patient to undergo plasma exchange treatment in an attempt to stop rejection, in what is thought to be a world first.
Working with the Ministry of Defence and Air Ambulances to look at new blood products that can help more people survive major trauma.
A UK first trial to fly blood packs along the Northumbrian coastline by a drone potentially supplying blood in a quicker and more environmentally friendly way in the future.

Dr Gail Miflin's biography

Gail is NHSBT’s Chief Medical Officer and Director of Clinical Services. She was appointed to the Chief Medical Officer role in June 2016.

Gail qualified from the University of Cambridge in 1991 and trained in haematology in New Zealand, Nottingham and Yorkshire. She was appointed to her first Consultant Haematologist post at the Royal Free Hospital in London in 2002 and subsequently moved to University College London Hospital (UCLH) Foundation Trust.

Whilst at UCLH, she specialised in treating people with red cell disorders such as thalassaemia and sickle cell disease. During this time, she also spent three years working part-time at South East London Strategic Health Authority as a Consultant, leading clinical improvement programmes with other clinicians in South East London Trusts.

In her Chief Medical Officer role, she is a member of the Joint United Kingdom (UK) Blood Transfusion and Tissue Transplantation Services Professional Advisory Committee and the Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs (SaBTO), both of which form safety policy advice for substances of human origin.

Gail also works closely with international colleagues, particularly from the Alliance of Blood Operators. She is a member of the Canadian Blood Services Scientific and Research Advisory Committee and the Finnish Red Cross Blood Service Research Advisory Board. She is also the sponsor of the UK Stem Cell Strategic Forum, on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care, and a Non-Executive Director at Accelerating Clinical Trials Limited.

Gail joined NHSBT in 2010 as a Consultant, initially alongside her role at UCLH. From 2012, she was appointed as Associate Medical Director for Blood Supply and subsequently, in 2016, became the Chief Medical Officer. Initially she was responsible for medical and R&D teams, safety policy and clinical governance. In 2016 she led NHSBT to be a Health Service Journal finalist in the Clinical Research Impact category for ‘Changing the Face of Research in Blood Donation’.

More recently, from 2020, she has also led NHSBT operational services delivering Cellular, Apheresis and Gene Therapies, Pathology services and the Transfusion team who liaise with hospitals in the use of blood.

Under Gail’s leadership, NHSBT teams have introduced greater equality in blood donation and its first health equities strategic plan. NHSBT and other UK Blood Services were the first to bring in changes to donation for gay men with individualised risk assessments, this has gone on to change global donation practice. Better equity in the provision of matched blood components for transfusion has been close to Gail’s heart since 2014, when she wrote her first briefing on the need for more blood with the Ro type. NHS England recently introduced the first ‘blood matching’ genetic test, performed in NHSBT laboratories, for thousands of people with inherited blood conditions to better match their blood transfusions, reducing the risk of side effects and offering more personalised care. There are many other ongoing efforts to reduce inequities in the access to products provided by NHSBT.

During the pandemic she led the DHSC funded COVID Convalescent Plasma (CCP) Programme which collected 90,000 units of plasma in 41 centres across England. This enabled the delivery of CCP trial arms in both the REMAP-CAP and RECOVERY trials across the UK, again led by NHSBT. These gave evidence in the appropriate use of CCP, which was adopted worldwide. Subsequently this project paved the way for the continued collection of UK plasma in three of the centres and the re-introduction of UK Plasma products. Gail continued to be involved in helping to provide the evidence and actions required for a new regulatory landscape for UK plasma, something she had started to do in 2018. She will be delighted to see our first UK collected Immunoglobulin return to the NHS in early 2025.

Statements

Statement from Dr Gail Miflin

Dr Gail Miflin said:

“I am very proud to receive this award, I hope it highlights the work done by many dedicated individuals in the NHS and particularly NHSBT. People come to work every day to save and improve lives and they truly achieve this.

“NHSBT is a fantastic organisation with a great heart. We are constantly trying to innovate, and our services are critical to the smooth running of the NHS.

“We provide blood, plasma, stem cells, tissues and organs, but we can’t do this without the people who donate. Donors are unsung heroes in society. They save lives every day through acts of altruism. Please help us save lives by donating blood and joining the NHS Organ Donor Register.”

Statement from Dr Jo Farrar, Chief Executive of NHS Blood and Transplant

Dr Jo Farrar, NHSBT Chief Executive said:

“This recognition is fully deserved. Gail puts patients and donors at the heart of her work and decision making. She is led by their safety and wellbeing and always strives to improve equity of healthcare.

“Gail has been at the centre of major projects at NHSBT that have improved patient and donor care and saved lives, and she leads our fantastic research and clinical teams to find new cures and treatments.

“Thanks to Gail, I am very proud to say we develop groundbreaking and world leading research and treatments that save and improve lives every day.”