The Welsh Blood Service is a division of
Velindre University NHS Trust
Felindre is a rural village in southern Wales. Felindre is located in the far north of Swansea, in the electoral ward of Mawr.
The nearby Lower Lliw Reservoirs are a popular venue for walking and fishing. The water mill in the village was worki ...
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.
History
The service was established in 1946. At that time the only test carried out was for syphilis. Since then more than 10 million units of blood have been donated in Wales.
Operations
The Welsh Blood Service's roles include
* the collection of voluntary, non-remunerated
blood,
platelet and
stem-cell donations from the general public.
* distribution of blood products to the customer hospitals of Wales.
* provision of an antenatal screening service to hospitals.
* specialist laboratory services, assisting the investigation of complex serological problems.
* the '
Welsh Transplantation & Immunogenetics Laboratory'', providing direct support to local providers of Renal and Stem Cell Transplant Services. It also operates a national panel of unrelated potential blood stem cell donors – th
Welsh Bone Marrow Donor Registry
* Medical Consultant support to Hospital Blood Transfusion Committees, which includes support in achieving the objectives of WHC (2002)137 Better Blood Transfusion. Clinical advice is provided to customer hospitals as required.
* hosting the UK NEQAS external quality assessment scheme for
histocompatibility
Histocompatibility, or tissue compatibility, is the property of having the same, or sufficiently similar, alleles of a set of genes called human leukocyte antigens (HLA), or major histocompatibility complex (MHC). Each individual expresses many uni ...
and
immunogenetics
Immunogenetics or immungenetics is the branch of Medical Immunology and Medical Genetics that explores the relationship between the immune system and genetics.
Autoimmune diseases, such as type 1 diabetes, are complex genetic traits which result ...
and th
Welsh Assessment of Serological Proficiency scheme(WASPS), contribution to the maintenance of quality standards in the transfusion and transplantation community.
All-Wales Blood Service
On 2 May 2016 the Welsh Blood Service became a national service and began collecting and distributing blood in North Wales. Previously to this, the service covered Mid, South and West Wales, with
NHS Blood and Transplant, covering North Wales.
Research and development
The
research and development
Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in Europe as research and technological development (RTD), is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products, and improving existi ...
activity within th
Welsh Blood Servicesupports a broad range of healthcare topics.
Its four research themes, Transplantation, Donor Care and Public Health, Products and Therapies reflect the spectrum of this work. In 2017 the Welsh Blood Service published it
Research and Development Strategy which details its planned expansion of activity into collaborative work and engaging in regenerative and personalised medicine fields.
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
Blood donation
NHS Wales