 | |
| Abbreviation | SNBTS |
|---|---|
| Type | Strategic Business Unit of NHS National Services Scotland |
| Headquarters | The Jack Copland Centre, 52 Research Avenue North, Heriot-Watt Research Park |
Region served | Scotland |
Parent organisation | NHS National Services Scotland |
| Website | www |
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). [1]
The first dedicated transfusion service in Scotland was formed at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh in the 1930s. [2] The Edinburgh Blood Transfusion Service (EBTS) was established in 1936 with Jack Copland as Organiser and Helen White as Secretary. [3] Helen White took over as Organiser in 1940 when Copland moved into a national role. The first meeting of the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Associsation (SNBTA) took place in Edinburgh in February 1940.[ citation needed ]
In the 1940s Helen White played a key role in the development of the blood donor service in Edinburgh and throughout Scotland, on her initiative a network of voluntary organisers was established. The network was characterised by its friendliness and the care she took in making voluntary donation an enjoyable activity. [3]
There are five blood centres, in Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness. [1]
The SNBTS also has several mobile units that travel to the remote centres and communities. These are usually set up in village halls and community centres. They tend to return approximately every 13 weeks, which can allow for up to four donations each year.[ citation needed ]
In November 2011 it was announced that a new national centre would be built within the Heriot-Watt research park in Edinburgh, and would include labs, offices and other facilities. [4] By October 2014, construction work had begun on the new £43 million facility. [5] The new centre is due to be completed in 2017 and has been funded using the Scottish Government’s Non Profit Distributing (NPD) model. [6]
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, clotting factors and platelets.
NHS National Services Scotland (NSS) is a Non Departmental Public Body which provides advice and services to the rest of NHS Scotland.
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.
The Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS), or Seirbhís Fuilaistriúcháin na hÉireann in Irish, was established in Ireland as the Blood Transfusion Service Board (BTSB) by the Blood Transfusion Service Board (Establishment) Order, 1965. It took its current name in April 2000 by Statutory Instrument issued by the Minister for Health and Children to whom it is responsible. The Service provides blood and blood products for humans.
The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, or RIE, often known as the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, or ERI, was established in 1729 and is the oldest voluntary hospital in Scotland. The new buildings of 1879 were claimed to be the largest voluntary hospital in the United Kingdom, and later on, the Empire. The hospital moved to a new 900 bed site in 2003 in Little France. It is the site of clinical medicine teaching as well as a teaching hospital for the University of Edinburgh Medical School. In 1960, the first successful kidney transplant performed in the UK was at this hospital. In 1964, the world's first coronary care unit was established at the hospital. It is the only site for liver, pancreas and pancreatic islet cell transplantation and one of two sites for kidney transplantation in Scotland. In 2012 the Emergency Department had 113,000 patient attendances, the highest number in Scotland. It is managed by NHS Lothian.
NHS Scotland, sometimes styled NHSScotland, is the publicly funded healthcare system in Scotland, and one of the four systems which make up the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. It operates fourteen territorial NHS boards across Scotland, seven special non-geographic health boards and NHS Health Scotland.
NHS Blood and Transplant is an executive non-departmental public body 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, founded by Dr. Geoffrey Tovey in 1972, and the National Blood Service. 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.
Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom provide emergency care to people with acute illness or injury and are predominantly provided free at the point of use by the four National Health Services (NHS) of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Emergency care including ambulance and emergency department treatment is only free to UK residents and a charge may be made to those not entitled to free NHS care. The NHS commissions most emergency medical services through the 14 NHS organisations with ambulance responsibility across the UK.
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.
Freewheelers Emergency Voluntary Service (EVS) is a blood bike charity based in South West England. Founded in Weston-super-Mare in 1990, it is funded by public donations and staffed by unpaid volunteers.
The Emergency Medical Retrieval Service (EMRS) provides aeromedical critical care to people in Scotland. It provides patients in remote and rural areas with rapid access to the skills of a consultant in emergency medicine, intensive care medicine, or anaesthesia, and facilitates transfers to larger, better equipped city hospitals.
World Blood Donor Day (WBDD) is held on June 14 each year. The event was organised for the first time in 2005, by a joint initiative of the World Health Organization, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to raise awareness of the need for safe blood and blood products, and to thank blood donors for their voluntary, life-saving gifts of blood. World Blood Donor Day is one of 11 official global public health campaigns marked by the World Health Organization (WHO), along with World Health Day, World Chagas Disease Day, World Tuberculosis Day, World Immunization Week, World Patient Safety Day, World Malaria Day, World No Tobacco Day, World Hepatitis Day, World Antimicrobial Awareness Week and World AIDS Day.
Blood transfusion was first performed in Sri Lanka in late 1950. It became more widely known to the public in 1959 after the assassination of Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, when an appeal was made to the public to donate blood. The country's blood bank system has since expanded from a single initial site to multiple blood donation centres and laboratories nationwide, operating under the auspices of the National Blood Transfusion Service (NBTS). As of 2014, the NBTS collects over 350,000 voluntary blood donations every year.
Blood donation in Bangladesh is an activity conducted by several different organisations. As of 2011, about 25% of the nation's blood supply came from voluntary donation, 20–25% from paid donors, and 50–55% from one-time donation for a specific patient.
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.
Fereydoun Ala is an Iranian physician and academician, specialised in internal medicine, haematology, blood transfusion and haemostasis, who established the first Clinical Haematology Department, and the first Haemophilia Centre in Iran at the Tehran University Medical Faculty. He was the founder of the Iranian National Blood Transfusion Service (INBTS), a centralised, state-funded organisation, established in 1974, for the recruitment of healthy, voluntary, non-remunerated blood donors.
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. Despite the shortage of donated blood, efforts by the government and advocacy groups over the years have helped bridge the gap between demand and supply. The number of voluntary blood donors increased from 54.4% in 2006–2007 to 83.1% in 2011–2012, with the number of blood units increasing from 4.4 million units in 2006–2007 to 9.3 million units in 2012–2013. In 2016, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare reported a donation of 10.9 million units against a requirement of 12 million units. 12.7 million units were donated in 2020, lower than projected due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 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.
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.
Percy Lane Oliver is credited with founding the first volunteer blood donation service. A layman, Oliver was working for the Camberwell division of the Red Cross in 1921 when he responded to a call from a local hospital requesting an urgent blood donation. This experience led him to organise a panel of donors whose blood types were known and who were available to donate on request. The donors, unusually for the time, were not paid. Oliver's blood donation service, which he ran out of his London home, would grow from 20 volunteers at its inception to approximately 2700 in 1938. His model of voluntary blood donation was adopted throughout Britain and in other countries.
