How new blood transfusion standards can improve blood services in India

Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has recently released the updated edition of the National Standards for Blood Centres and Blood Transfusion Services, incorporating the developments in the blood collection, storage and transfusion technologies and regulatory changes in the segment

In what can be a good policy initiative to help blood banks across the country for improving their standards and thereby providing excellent and high quality services to the citizens of the country, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has recently released the updated edition of the National Standards for Blood Centres and Blood Transfusion Services, incorporating the developments in the blood collection, storage and transfusion technologies and regulatory changes in the segment. The ministry's initiative in this regard comes after a long gap of 15 years as the ministry had first released the National Standards for Blood Centres and Blood Transfusion Services for the first time in the year 2007 as a guiding document to establish uniform standard practices across various blood banks and improve the availability, accessibility, safety and quality of blood and blood products in the country.

Blood Transfusion Service (BTS) is a vital part of the healthcare services. Increasing advancement in the field of transfusion medicine and technology has necessitated enforcing measures to ensure quality of blood and its products. The blood transfusion system has made significant advancement in areas of donor management, storage of blood, grouping and cross matching, testing for transmissible diseases, rationale use of blood and distribution etc. In order to improve the standards of blood banks and the blood transfusion services in the country, National AIDS Control Organization, through Technical Resource Group on Blood Safety, had formulated comprehensive standards to ensure better quality control system on collection, storage, testing and distribution of blood and its components. For quality, safety and efficacy of blood and blood products, well-equipped blood centres with adequate infrastructure and trained manpower is an essential requirement. For effective clinical use of blood, it is necessary to train clinical staff. To attain maximum safety, the requirements of good laboratory practices (GLP), good manufacturing practices (GMP) and moving towards total quality management is vital for organization and management of blood transfusion services.

It is a fact that a well defined standard for blood banks was a long-felt demand for improving the blood transfusion services in the country. National Blood Transfusion Council has entrusted this responsibility to the Technical Resource Group on Blood Safety to develop a comprehensive standards which will help to bring a paradigm change in the functional status of blood banks in India. The updated edition of the National Standards for Blood Centres and Blood Transfusion Services will definitely help the state health authorities, licensing authorities, administration of the hospital-based blood banks and blood banks run by charitable organization to understand the basic standards required to operate a blood bank in the most efficient way and thereby provide quality service delivery. A well-organised BTS, with quality systems in all areas, is a pre-requisite for the safe and effective use of blood and blood products. This is a vital component of any healthcare delivery system. An integrated strategy for blood safety is required for elimination of transfusion transmitted infections and for provision of safe and adequate blood supply to the people. The BTS in India is highly decentralized and lack many vital resources like manpower, adequate infrastructure and financial base. The main issue, which plagues blood banking system in the country, is fragmented management. The standards vary from State to State, cities to cities and centre to centre in the same city. The blood component production/availability and utilization is extremely limited. There is shortage of trained healthcare professionals in the field of transfusion medicine.

The health ministry's effort in this regard is laudable as since the world is changing very fast, there is a need to keep pace with the changing technologies globally. It is a fact that blood transfusion services are a vital part of the healthcare delivery system and transfusion of blood and components is a life saving procedure for patients during emergency and non emergency situations especially for children suffering from blood disorders like thalassemia, sickle cell anemia, etc. There are significant developments in the field of blood transfusion in the last few decades and now this speciality has been renamed as Transfusion Medicine. The scope of the newly released second edition of the National Standards for Blood Centres and Blood Transfusion Services includes all aspects of transfusion medicine with special emphasis on Good Laboratory Practices, Quality Management Systems, Updated Regulatory Requirements and Hemovigilance. Blood centres can adopt and implement them to achieve optimal blood and blood product safety for patients in need. Of course, the second edition of the Standards will further the cause of improvement of blood and blood products.

(The author is freelance journalist with varied experience in different fields)