The Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service (SNBTS) is the national
blood
Blood is a body fluid in the circulatory system of humans and other vertebrates that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells, and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells.
Blood is com ...
,
blood product and
tissue provider. It makes up a Strategic Business Unit of
NHS National Services Scotland
NHS National Services Scotland (NSS) is a public body and national health board of NHS Scotland.
Accountable to the Scottish Government, NSS works at the heart of Scotland’s health service, providing national strategic support services and e ...
(NSS).
History
The first dedicated transfusion service in Scotland was formed at the
Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh
The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh (RIE) 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."In Com ...
in the 1930s. The Edinburgh Blood Transfusion Service (EBTS) was established in 1936 with Jack Copland as Organiser and Helen White as Secretary.
Helen White took over as Organiser in 1940 when Copland moved into a national role. The first meeting of the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Association (SNBTA) took place in Edinburgh in February 1940.
Key personnel
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.
Centres
There are five blood centres, in
Aberdeen
Aberdeen ( ; ; ) is a port city in North East Scotland, and is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, third most populous Cities of Scotland, Scottish city. Historically, Aberdeen was within the historic county of Aberdeensh ...
,
Dundee
Dundee (; ; or , ) is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, fourth-largest city in Scotland. The mid-year population estimate for the locality was . It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firt ...
,
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...
,
Glasgow
Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...
and
Inverness
Inverness (; ; from the , meaning "Mouth of the River Ness") is a city in the Scottish Highlands, having been granted city status in 2000. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highland ...
.
The SNBTS also has several mobile units that travel to the remote centres and communities. These are usually set up in
village hall
A village hall is a public building in a rural or suburban community which functions as a community centre without a religious affiliation.
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, a village hall is a building which is owned by a local gover ...
s and community centres. They tend to return approximately every 13 weeks, which can allow for up to four donations each year.
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. By October 2014, construction work had begun on the new £43 million facility. The new centre is due to be completed in 2017 and has been funded using the Scottish Government's Non Profit Distributing (NPD) model.
See also
*
NHS Blood and Transplant
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 Transplan ...
– the equivalent organisation in
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
*
Northern Ireland Blood Transfusion Service
*
Welsh Blood Service
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Blood donation
A 'blood donation'' occurs when a person voluntarily has blood drawn and used for transfusions and/or made into biopharmaceutical medications by a process called fractionation (separation of whole blood components). A donation may be of wh ...
*
Blood transfusion
Blood transfusion is the process of transferring blood products into a person's Circulatory system, circulation intravenously. Transfusions are used for various medical conditions to replace lost components of the blood. Early transfusions used ...
*
James Blundell (physician)
James Blundell (27 December 1790, in Holborn, London – 15 January 1878, in St George Hanover Square, London) was an English obstetrician who performed the first successful transfusion of human blood to a patient for treatment of a hemorr ...
*
Emergency Hospital Service
During Home front during World War II, World War II, a centralised state-run Emergency Hospital Service was established in the United Kingdom.Paul Addison, "The Road to 1945", Jonathan Cape, 1975, pp. 178–81. It employed doctors and nurses to ca ...
*
NHS Scotland
NHS Scotland, sometimes styled NHSScotland, is the publicly–funded healthcare system in Scotland and one of the four systems that make up the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. It operates 14 territorial NHS boards across Scotland ...
*
Scottish Centre for Regenerative Medicine
References
External links
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{{Authority control
Blood banks in the United Kingdom
NHS Scotland
Government agencies established in 1930
1930 establishments in Scotland
Organisations based in Edinburgh