Dispenser staunches flow of wasted blood

A Scottish hospital has developed a revolutionary "push-and-pour" blood dispenser which promises to end the waste of thousands of litres of blood donated by the public every year.

Blood for the 100,000 transfusions performed by the NHS in Scotland every year is normally dispensed in half-litre bags. But if the patient only requires a small amount of blood then the rest of the contents of the bag are discarded.

The new Haemosafe machine allows healthcare staff to withdraw the exact amount of blood required, potentially saving supplies for other patients. Its developers say it should also make blood tranfusions safer as the machine will eliminate errors caused when wrongly labelled supplies are accidentally given to patients.

Final tests are currently under way before the system goes "live" later this year at the Stracathro Regional Treatment Centre near Brechin in Angus. If it is successful, designers hope other health boards will introduce the technology in their own hospitals.

Donor blood is vital to the running of the NHS, with thousands of transfusions requiring various amounts of different blood products.

Last December, the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service (SNBTS) put out an appeal for thousands of new donors because of concerns about maintaining supplies.

Stracathro is about to become the first in Scotland to install the blood bank after staff raised concerns about the waste of donated blood and decided to design a new type of dispenser.

While the Haemosafe unit is physically based at Stracathro, it is operated, controlled and stocked by the SNBTS regional blood bank at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee.

A spokeswoman for the SNBTS, the specialist provider of transfusion medicine in Scotland, said the aim of the new system was to "maximise" use of the donor's gift.

She explained: "In conjunction with Tayside Health Board, we are currently introducing an electronic system, Haemosafe, at Stracathro Hospital.

"If someone is identified as requiring a blood transfusion, an appropriately trained member of staff - a member of medical staff, nurses or anaesthetic staff - will get a prescription from the ward, which is then taken to the Haemosafe, where it is 'wanded in' like a barcode at a supermarket."

She added: "The Haemosafe pops out the required amount of blood, along with all the safety information, and it can be taken back to be used in a transfusion.

"This system will ensure a more effective use of blood whilst enhancing the current level of service provided to the Stracathro Regional Treatment Centre as well as to the rest of the Stracathro site. The system will also provide greater flexibility in responding to the needs of the patient 24 hours a day, seven days a week by replacing the current Monday to Friday service." As well as cutting down on waste, Haemosafe is expected to reduce the number of human errors that lead to some patients being given the wrong blood.

Dr Robert Cumming, a retired consultant haematologist and patron of the Scotland Patients Association, said: "Anything that decreases the potential human error is to be thoroughly welcomed. It's nearly always human error that goes wrong with blood transfusions.

"At present, every unit of blood that leaves a blood bank is marked off by a member of staff by hand, which could occasionally lead to mistakes being made.

"If that could be done by bar-coding or electronically, it could eliminate the possibility of a human person being there to do that, thus eliminating any human errors," Cumming said.

The chairwoman and founder of campaign group Friends of Stracathro, Angus Provost Ruth Leslie Melville, said: "It's very forward thinking to bring something as innovative as this to Stracathro where it will be of great value. It will save blood, which is at a premium because our blood supplies are always under stress."