Service History and Organisation
The NBS is part of NHS Blood and Transplant, which is a National Health Service Special Health Authority. The authority also includes the Bio Products Laboratory, which supplies blood products to hospitals and UK Transplant, which operates the national organ donor register.
The service was formed in 1946 as the Blood Transfusion Service and is still often referred to as this. The name change came about in 1991 to reflect the move away from a regionally based service to a nationally organised one. 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. Staff are opposed to this strategy, and it is now under review. The future organisation of NBS blood processing and testing is still to be agreed.
NBS 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.
Read more about this topic: National Blood Service
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