Analysis: Who is buying our donated blood?
We, the British public, are not allowed to know who has bought our donated blood. Why?
Because giving us that information might prejudice ‘commercial interests’.
NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT), whose privatisation is still under consideration, was recently given permission to sell on surplus blood products and plasma, which are not needed for the NHS.
The contracts are subject to a host of strict conditions. The sale of whole blood is not allowed. Neither is anything that ‘might be administered to a person’. The discard plasma is expected to be used for research purposes, or for making diagnostic reagents.
Quest for transparency
In May 2011 NHSBT signed a contract worth £150,000 per year with a company. So far it has supplied 500 litres of surplus plasma to that firm.
The Bureau asked NHSBT for the name of the buyer.
‘We are not able to supply the company name as we don’t have agreement with them to do this,’ said the press officer. They did, however, say that the purchaser was based in the EU.
A Freedom of Information request was duly submitted. The response, received today, is unequivocal. We are not allowed to know.
‘The information cannot be released at this stage due to commercial interests … Due to the sensitive nature of this, we believe the release of this information will most certainly affect commercial interests between suppliers and competitors.’
NHSBT believes its own commercial interest, or that of the unnamed company, trumps our right to know who has bought our freely donated blood, and the public interest in having these contracts open to scrutiny.
This attitude, coming from an organisation that is wholly dependent on public altruism, is alarming.
NHSBT believes its own commercial interest, or that of the un-named company, trumps our right to know who has bought our freely donated blood.
Impact of commercialising the NHS
Aside from anything else, it raises the question of whether the public would be in a better position if it sold rather than donated blood to the NHS, so that its own ‘commercial interests’ had to be considered alongside the company’s. So much for the Big Society.
But it is also a warning of things to come.
The Department of Health (DoH) is currently carrying out a review of the ‘commercial effectiveness’ of NHSBT.
This followed Andrew Lansley’s report on Arm’s Length Bodies in the NHS, which concluded that ‘there may be opportunities for more cost effective operations and commercial arrangement such as contracting out some discrete functions, provided there is no conflict with the public health considerations’.
Following media coverage, the DoH said the blood service would not be sold off to private firms.
Whether or not this happens, the increasing emphasis on the ‘commercial’ in the NHS means a reduction in the public’s right to know seems almost inevitable.
British blood should be boiling.
