Today in 1667 - First documented human blood transfusion

The first fully-documented human blood transfusion was administered by Dr. Jean-Baptiste Denys, eminent physician to King Louis XIV of France, on June 15, 1667. He transfused the blood of a sheep into a 15-year old boy, who recovered. Denys performed another transfusion into a labourer, who also survived. Both instances were likely due to the small amount of blood that was actually transfused into these people. This allowed them to withstand the allergic reaction.

Read the Wikipedia entry

World Blood Donor Day - June 14th 2009

It's World Blood Donor Day, an annual day around the globe to celebrate the amazing gift of life that blood donation and transfusion gives to thousands of people every day, and especially to promote volunteer blood donation (as opposed to paid donors), as this ensures the safest supply of blood.

'If you call them, they will come...'

Spain


Italy


Canada


Testing a donor's blood pre-donation for haemoglobin levels in the olden days



'That wasn't so bad...'









This is what happens to your blood



In the past it used to be stored in glass jars, as these old Red Cross pictures show





The finished product



Pure human solidarity



Today and every day 1,700 people in the UK will receive a blood transfusion

Want to learn more? Click these links:

Boiiiinnng! Donor services boss jumps for pastures greener

In 2008 NHS Blood & transplant took on a new Director of Blood Donation, Andy Young. Here's Andy.



Andy's previous experience was as a top boss at the O2 Arena. Here's the O2 Arena.



This certainly rose a few eyebrows - and sneers - among the writers of this blog. It is a worrying sign when NHSBT management think that a great candidate for a director is one from the commercial sector, with no experience of working in the Blood Service or even the NHS. What's more the O2 Arena is hardly one of the all-time great successes of the business world...

All signs pointed to yet another clueless chief. Sighs and headshakes all round from staff.

At the start of June 2009 the bitter ramblings of even the most cynical staff members have been trumped - just one year after settling into his office, barely time to warm the chill off his leather seat, Andy Young is off to a new, shinier job. Andy obviously favours the 'jack of all trades' approach to his CV, deciding now to try his hand at (or should that be dip his toe into...) the 2012 Olympics. Not exactly the poster boy for continuity!

If Andy Young wants to really make an impact as part of 2012 he's probably best off stepping out from behind the scenes and joining the athletes in the long jump or the high jump.



It's bad enough to have directors brought in from the private sector, where they have honed their skills of brutality and cold-heartedness, and touted as the perfect choice to manage a service based on altruism. But at the very least those working in the upper echelons of NHSBT need to have a passing interest in or concern for blood donation and transfusion. Andy Young's selfish desertion demonstrates that he had nothing of the sort. He must have been idly flicking through the job pages for a few months at least. Or was it ever anything more to him than a stop gap?

Andy Young welcomes prospective NHSBT director hopefuls via Hays management recruitment agency. Probably written by his secretary...

Anyone who felt the burning passion that some of us feel for the work we do would not be able to simply walk out the door at the whiff of something bigger and better in the shallow way that he has done.

Money well spent, bosses?

Birmingham Processing Lab 1965 - 2009

A tribute. Thousands of lives were saved by blood products from this lab. Colleagues and hospitals will feel the loss.

Please click on photos for large version






These are the centrifuges that spun blood at high speed to separate out the different types of cells. Now they are still.


This row of now-idle Compomat machines pressed the blood after it was spun to push the plasma into a separate bag from the red cells.




Industrial thermogenesis machine which froze plasma to below -40 degrees centigrade.










Lab technicians no more.


Morale is bad amongst those left at Birmingham centre.

Night shifts bad for workers' health - Supercentre runs 24 hours

It was reported in today's news that 37 women in Denmark have won the right to compensation after it was proven that working night shifts long-term was linked to them developing breast cancer.



This link was suspected as long ago as 2001. Read more in a report on the research done into it here.

Cancer is not the only health concern around night working. Humans are not nocturnal (we are diurnal, the opposite of nocturnal). Night shift work is believed to cause disturbed sleep, fatigue and digestive problems. There are possible increased risks of diabetes. Scientific studies have shown that sleep disruption can cause the body to produce less melatonin, an important sleep regulating hormone. And accident rates are significantly higher on the night shift than during the day.

This leaflet informs employers that workers are at more risk of accidents when working at night than during the day.

Knowing this, it is a shameful and dangerous step backwards for National Blood Service bosses to decide to centralise blood processing and reduce the number of regional labs. At these regional labs where local blood collections were received, the processing work could be completed in a day, and the workers stop at 11pm. At the Filton supercentre which replaces them, where all blood for the whole of the Midlands and South-West has to be processed, the work rolls non-stop 24 hours round the clock. Now, as a result of this restructuring, unhealthy night shift working is being inflicted onto more workers. It doesn't seem too much to ask when you work in the NHS, helping to save lives, that your employers won't make choices that could shorten your own!

Do you have to work night shifts? Does a friend or family member? Take care - here are some health tips for shift or night time workers and advice from the Health & Safety Executive.

'Midwifery Matters' Autumn '08 - article on NBS restructuring

This is an article by Morag Forbes published in the Autumn '08 issue of 'Midwifery Matters'.

Restructuring of Britain’s National Blood Services:
Why we should care, and what we can do!

Author’s note: At first sight, this article may seem “off topic” for Midwifery Matters. I decided to write it after hearing from friends working in the blood service. While their job is different to ours, many of the same themes are emerging – cuts, increasing centralisation, and devaluing of staff. And, as you will see, cuts in the blood service will directly affect the care we offer to women.



What is the NBS? What does it do?

England’s National Blood Service (NBS) is over 60 years old. This specialised service collects, tests and processes blood products. Its local nature is essential – local labs understand the needs of local health services.

What are the restructuring plans?

NBS management plan to close local labs across England, replacing them with “supercentres”. Around 600 jobs (roughly half the NBS workforce) would be lost in the process. NBS staff have not been consulted on their opinions of what would constitute a safe and efficient service structure.

Has there been opposition to the plans?

The plans are widely opposed by unions, city councils, NBS staff, and service users. This prompted a review of the plans. In North and Southeast England, the “supercentre” idea has been abandoned. Some local centres have been saved, or have retained functions that were to be cut.

However, many NBS centres are still threatened. Processing and/or testing labs are to be closed at Leeds, Tooting, Brentwood, Birmingham, Southampton and Plymouth. RCI Reference Labs, which crossmatch blood for rare/reactive blood types, will close in Manchester, Southampton and Cambridge. Many services will be moved to a “supercentre” at Bristol.

These plans still mean at least 600 redundancies in the service.

What about the rest of the UK?

The supercentre plan, discredited, but still rumbling on in the South West has now made its way to Scotland too, with plans to close Glasgow and Edinburgh blood centres in the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service. One ‘super’ facility for the whole of the central belt, would take blood processing away from local communities.

How will this affect healthcare?

NBS staff have severe concerns about the plans’ implications for safe healthcare.

As services become more centralised, blood products must be transported for hundreds of miles, on a potentially unreliable motorway network. Rare blood products may not be available quickly in emergency situations. Longer transport times will mean blood products spend longer in suboptimal storage conditions.

Redundancies in the blood donation service may prove critical, with donation levels already seriously low.

How will this affect maternity care?

All midwives know the importance of speedy access to blood products in emergencies: it may literally be the difference between life and death for a mother or her newborn.

This is especially true for ill babies. Split platelets for newborns are always made to demand, to avoid wastage, and very often wanted in a short time scale. For example, Birmingham Women’s Hospital currently obtains split platelets from a lab within walking distance. Split platelets can be made from adult platelets to be available immediately. If services are centralised to Bristol, Birmingham will have to stock ready-split platelets. These will go in the bin if not used within 4 days (extra travelling time means they lose a day of their 5-day shelf life!). Otherwise, staff will have to phone an order to Bristol, and wait for the appropriate platelets to be sourced, processed and sent along the motorway. It’s easy to see how disastrous this could be.

On a less dramatic level, the next phase of cuts will see the NBS decrease its role in antenatal screening from 2011. This makes no economic sense, when the NBS can perform screening tests at a much lower cost than individual hospitals can. As radical midwives, we may question the routine use of screening. However, for families who choose these services, they should surely be available locally and at minimum cost to the NHS.

What can I do?

- Keep up to date at http://nbs-sos.blogspot.com
- Spread the word to local/national media, other healthcare professionals and service users.
- Ask your city council to pass a resolution opposing the plans. This has already happened in many areas.
- Raise the issue via your local Public and Patient Involvement Forum

'Midwifery Matters' is the magazine of ARM (The Association of Radical Midwives). The magazine is only available to members, but can also be found in some university libraries. Visit ARM's website here, and read more articles from previous issues of MM here.

New social networking site from the Transplant Trust

The Transplant Trust has launched a new social networking site called thetxspace.com

'thetxspace is for everyone connected with the world of transplantation. Clinicians - Donor families and friends - Patients - Supporters - Carers.

Join the network today!'

WORLD BLOOD DONOR DAY - 14TH JUNE

Today is World Blood Donor Day, an annual event to promote and highlight the amazing and altruistic gift of life which donors give.

Find out more here.

This year's theme is 'Many happy returns', a title chosen to remind us that it is important for donors to give not just once, but regularly, in order to maintain safe stock levels for our hospitals.

Find out about how and where you can donate near you at the National Blood Service website.

Below is the text from a new leaflet promoting both the Save Our Blood Service campaign and the BloodBan campaign.


An Injury to One is an Injury to All

Blood links all of us from donor to patient

It’s generally believed that we live in a selfish, even cruel, world. But humans constantly challenge this view with amazingly generous, social and altruistic behaviour.

Giving blood is pure human solidarity. A patient receiving a transfusion can look up at the pack of red cells feeding into their body and know that someone wanted them to live, without knowing who they are. Blood is a vital fluid that is common to us all.

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Less than 5% of the eligible population give blood, and a lot of money is spent on adverts to recruit donors. At present, men who have sex with men are excluded from donating blood. The current opinion of NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) is that blood from a sexually active gay man may be more likely to carry infections than blood from a straight person. They claim that screening for disease would be too expensive, although they already screen all blood from heterosexuals, where STDs are on the rise.

Logically if gay men could donate, the donor pool would be instantly increased and less would need to be spent on advertising.

Pressure from the BloodBan campaign and from health workers through their unions has caused NHSBT decision makers to agree to incorporate a review of screening policy as one of the priorities under an equality impact assessment to be rolled out across NHSBT in the coming year.

Find out more at: www.bloodban.co.uk

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NHSBT is making cuts to our blood service nationally. A money-driven restructuring plan is slashing the number of labs which test, filter and process blood. This is wasting the skills of 100s of technicians and scientists who are losing their jobs, and means that hospitals’ blood supply is further away, a huge risk in case of emergencies.

Centralisation like this is often a prelude to privatisation. We all know the decline in care which the private sector brings when it gets its fangs into the NHS. The World Health Organisation (WHO) says that a purely voluntary blood service, free from profit, is the safest way to avoid infection. We share a free blood service with less than 25% of the world’s countries – we need to protect it as any one of us could need a transfusion to save our life.

Save Our Blood Service has been fighting cuts in NHSBT. We think that there is a chain of solidarity from the blood donor, to the healthcare workers, right through to the patient receiving the gift of life. We want all of these people to have a greater say in our health service. If you believe the same, we want to hear from you.

To find out more email: nbs.sos@gmail.com or visit: www.nbs-sos.blogspot.com

Outcome of the Blood Service strategic review

The review of the NBS restructuring strategy is now complete and these are the outcomes.

The outcry from hospitals, staff and the public at the dangerous and stupid proposals has meant that in the north and south-east, the board have been forced to scrap the idea of supercentres. One excellent victory that we can claim is that the Newcastle centre is now to remain fully open, and Sheffield also keeps many more functions.



But the axe still hangs over essential labs at centres across the country.

From the north and south-east of England, processing labs are still earmarked for closure at Leeds and Tooting, and testing labs are planned to be shut at Brentwood, Leeds and Tooting.

NBS RCI reference labs, which crossmatch blood for patients with rare or reactive blood types, are critical to have closely linked with hospitals in the area. Despite this, NBS directors still think that they can get away with closing RCI labs in Manchester, Southampton, Cambridge, to cut costs.

The NBS has also taken advice that it should consider ending its role in antenatal screening by 2011. This will cost more jobs, and will eventually cost the wider NHS as well. The NBS is able to do this testing at a fraction of what it costs hospitals to do it themselves. If they in fact extended their involvement in antenatal screening, they could create more income for NHS Blood and Transplant, as well as lightening the load on hospital budgets. It seems the word foresight is missing from the NBS management dictionary.

Interestingly the revised proposed strategy will cost a predicted 600 jobs, in addition to those slashed in the midlands and south-west consolidation. Before the review the figure of 600 applied to job losses in total across the whole country. It should also be noted that bosses want to cut more jobs in the extremely understaffed collection teams - at a time when collected donations are way below target.

Meanwhile in the midlands and south-west zone, directors are desperately clinging to the supercentre model, reluctant to face the humiliation of abandoning their flagship Filton supercentre venture. This was purposely left out of the review as bosses knew McKinsey & Co. would advise against such a drastic cut, as has been proven in the other two regions. Large processing labs from Birmingham, Southampton and Plymouth are still destined to be packed off to this white elephant. Directors also want to inexplicably uproot donor typing and patient screening from Colindale, and the national Cord Blood Bank from Edgware, to Filton in Bristol. The only apparent reason for this is an attempt to further justify that the shiny hangar is not going to be a terrible waste of resources.

Now that the factual support is crumbling, we have to push on campaigning against centralisation. No decision on the fate of our health services should ever be made based on keeping someone’s CV unsoiled.

Thanks to all campaign supporters for your valuable help so far - we’re getting there, and reason is on our side - let’s keep on fighting!

So, what exactly does the Blood Service do anyway?

The National Blood Service is a vital part of the NHS. We deliver blood, blood products and tissues from our 15 blood centres for transfusion to patients anywhere in England and North Wales.

We depend entirely on voluntary donations given generously by the general public.

Our processing labs filter donations and split them into components including red cells (often used for operations or major traumas), white cells (often used for leukaemia patients), frozen plasma (often used for serious burns victims) and platelets (used for those who have disorders with clotting).
Our testing labs test every unit to determine which group it belongs to. There are 8 groups: O+ (the most common), O-, A+, A-, B+, B-, AB+ and AB- (the rarest). There are further specialist groups within these, like Sickle Cell negative. Every donation is also rigorously screened for infections so that it is safe for patients. The blood which patients receive is specially matched to their individual medical needs and can make the difference between life and death.

Our staff are highly experienced and trained in the latest transfusion science research available.

Every year we collect, test, process, store and issue 2.1 million blood donations.

Our National Health Service would not be able to function without the National Blood Service.