The NHS Blood and Transplant’s (NHSBT) strategic plan for 2011-2014 sets out new plans for blood, organ, stem cell and tissue donation. The NHSBT wants to maintain the current price of blood until 2014, releasing savings to hospitals of £10 m per year to reinvest in frontline patient care.
The special health authority is already half way to its target of increasing organ donation by 50% by 2013 and is now working to increase the number of organ transplants to more than 4,000 per year, as well as to boost the number of umbilical cord blood units available for transplantation to 50,000. Lynda Hamlyn, chief executive of NHSBT, said: “Our priorities for 2011-2114 are to build on the improvements of the past three years and stretch and challenge ourselves with new initiatives to help achieve our vision to be the best organisation of our type in the world. Safety and sufficiency is the bedrock of all that we do. We will continue to improve this but we also need to focus on increasing efficiency and donor and customer satisfaction.”
