Blood Transfusion and Blood Donation

This PSP worked with patients, donors, relatives and clinicians to identify and prioritise the most pressing unanswered questions about the therapeutic use of red blood cells, platelets and plasma in patients of any age and in any hospital department.  It did this across the whole clinical pathway from blood donation through to recovery from transfusion, including treatment strategies that provide alternatives to using blood. 

The PSP was funded by NHS Blood and Transplant, in collaboration with the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, and began its work in October 2015.

The first survey from the PSP asked anyone with experience of blood transfusion or blood donation to submit their comments and questions, to help influence the research that is done in this area in future.  A list of unanswered questions was drawn up from the responses to the survey.

A second survey asked patients, donors, relatives and clinicians to vote on which of the unanswered questions were most important in their experience.  In a final workshop in February 2018 patients, donors, relatives and clinicians discussed the 30 questions that people had voted as most important and agreed a final order of priority for them, focusing specifically on what the Top 10 most important future research questions were.

The Blood Transfusion and Blood Donation PSP Top 10 was published in March 2018.

Key documents

Blood Transfusion and Blood Donation PSP protocol

Blood Transfusion and Blood Donation PSP Steering Group terms of reference

Blood Transfusion and Blood Donation PSP engagement summary