National Blood Service

Lisa Nandy Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Jim Dobbin]

If that were the case, it would make it much more dangerous for those patients who were waiting to receive that blood or organ. I would not like to see that happening.

The National Blood Service has created a strategy for each of its departments as it strives to improve its service and, looking at the review in great detail, in my view, it is succeeding. It is aware of the current economic situation and the constraints that it is working within over the next few years. It is planning more developments in future years. The question that has to be asked is why sell off something that is working so well. I understand that scientific staff have been angry about these moves. They have blasted the Government plan and demand changes to the Health and Social Care Bill, which will let private companies cash in on lucrative Government contracts.

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern about the staff who currently work in the National Blood Service? Many of them opt to work in such services because they believe in the public good and in the common good. Does he share my concern about the impact that privatisation will have on them?

[Jim Dobbin]

Yes. That is exactly right. Those staff, who are well trained specialists in their area, are very concerned about the damage that this proposal would do to the blood transfusion system and they are very angry about what is possibly going to happen. Of course, they also fear that donors will walk away. There are 1.4 million volunteer donors at the moment. They donate about 200,000 units every year, which is a huge amount of blood, and all of it is donated voluntarily. Privatisation of the blood service has been tried in New Zealand and it drove down the number of blood donors. It deterred them from making that contribution freely, because donors do not like to see their organs or blood as part of a private sector business.

Why should the private sector profit from blood that is given freely? There is no private sector organisation that has the expertise to provide the range of services—blood supplies, tissue, organs and specialist products, plus the specialist research expertise—that are provided by the NHS blood transfusion service.