National Blood Service

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Jim Dobbin]

I thank the hon. Gentleman very much. That was a very positive contribution, based on his own specific experience. There is a petition about this issue, there are now some 35,000 signatures on it, and it is building up all the time.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

I also congratulate my hon. Friend on securing a very important debate about an issue that is of great concern among the public. I wanted to ask him about the lessons from overseas countries where blood transfusion services have been privatised and where it is standard to pay for donated materials. What lessons can we learn from those countries about the safety of supply?

[Jim Dobbin]

I referred earlier to another privatisation that took place in the health service, when cleaning was put out to tender. Of course, the quality of the service was reduced. That is exactly what I fear will happen with the blood service, because if someone is in the business of making money and making profit they take short cuts. It is as simple as that.

The petition that I was talking about is building up. In addition, 300 people got in touch to say how much they valued the blood service. For many of those people, their loved ones personally benefited from the altruism of a fellow human being.

The blood service began before the national health service, around the time of world war two, when the demand for the service originated. So the blood service is older than the NHS.

I am very concerned. The Government are saying that only elements of the NHS blood transfusion service are under discussion at the present time but that is a dangerous route to go down. I hope that the Minister will take this issue back to the Government and the Secretary of State, and ask for a review of this particular service that the public so dearly love. The other thing that I will say is that if someone is looking for a big society in action, the blood service is it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anne Milton]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. What matters is that people get good value for money from the taxes that they pay. What also matters is that we do things effectively and efficiently, so we constantly market-test within NHS provision. We should do so. What matters to us is having a quality service. However, we are not selling off the blood service and we are not privatising it. As for performance, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree that the performance of our blood service puts us in the top quartile compared with other European blood services. That is a fantastic achievement.

I reiterate the hon. Gentleman’s comments about what the improvements in the blood service mean. There has been a reduction in the price of a unit of blood, down by £15 from £140 in 2008-09 to £125 today. As he rightly pointed out, that reduction saves hospitals £30 million each year, which can be channelled straight back into patient care. Again, I pay tribute to the staff who have achieved that reduction.

It would be a huge oversight on my part if I did not also pay tribute to those who donate their blood for the benefit of others. I am pleased to learn that my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) has donated blood himself. Every year, 1.4 million people donate blood, which means that 2 million units a year are donated in total. That equates to 7,000 new units of blood every day, or about five a minute. Statistics are wonderful when one is engaged in a debate such as this one; they show the scale of the donations that are made. Those donations have saved countless lives and continue to do so. Indeed, the altruistic donor system is one of the rocks that the NHS is built on and we will not do anything to jeopardise public confidence in it.

It would also be remiss of me not to mention organ donation. The one thing that we do not do often enough is to thank people who donate their organs and those of their loved ones, saving many lives in the process. We have made great improvements in organ donation, which is up by 28% since 2008, but we must continue to make improvements. I do not want anything, anyone or any public statement to jeopardise any of that. On the contrary, we want to carry out a review to help NHS Blood and Transplant to improve its operational efficiency even further and provide an even better service.

The blood service must be seen in the context of its role in the NHS. The hon. Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) mentioned courier services for getting blood around the place. We have been using courier services for many years—the previous Government did so as well—to deliver organs and tissue, and there is no question of putting the delivery of blood at risk.

[Grahame M. Morris]

Just for the record, it was my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South (Mr Sutcliffe) who raised that issue, but it is one that I am concerned about.

Will the Minister address the new role of the economic regulator, Monitor, and the responsibilities that it will have regarding competition? Will its remit extend to the blood service?

[Anne Milton]

I apologise for confusing the hon. Gentleman with the Member who was sitting next to him. At least it gave me the opportunity to clarify the point. To ensure that I give the hon. Gentleman a precise answer, I will have to come back to him on Monitor because I do not have the information with me. I will happily do that after the debate.

The blood service is self-funding, in that it recovers the cost of collecting, testing and processing blood through the price paid by the NHS for each unit. The price of a unit is therefore directly related to the efficiency with which NHSBT conducts its operations; the one feeds into the other. If the cost of a unit of blood goes up, there is pressure on budgets, so the whole NHS has an interest in NHSBT being as efficient as possible and keeping the cost low. The £30 million that we have been able to put back in demonstrates that costs are being kept low, and more can be spent on patient care.

The review of NHSBT was announced in the report produced by the arm’s length bodies review in July 2010. The review is ongoing, and I cannot say what the outcome will be, but I would like to explain what the review is about, and in doing so, clarify what it is not about and hopefully reassure the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton and all those who might share his concerns.

The review will identify opportunities both to help NHSBT further improve the efficiency of its operations, and to save money. Aspects of NHSBT’s activities covered by the review include IT, estates, testing, processing and logistics. NHSBT has recognised that those areas have room for improvement, in both developing services and increasing efficiency; such functions can often be carried out more efficiently. NHSBT already outsources some of its activities to private sector companies, for example facilities management, legal services and the call centre, so by exploring whether greater savings are possible, the review does nothing new. It simply takes a currently successful model, which has demonstrated that it can improve, and considers whether it would work if it were to be expanded.

As I said, we are looking to ensure maximum efficiency for NHSBT, and I am sure that the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton agrees with that aim. We will do whatever works, and whatever can ensure a safe supply of blood to the NHS.