Released: Tuesday 20th November 2012

National blood centre

19/11/2012

A new national centre for blood, tissues and cells testing has been given the green light.

The outline business case for the new National Centre for the Scottish National Blood Tranfusion Service (SNBTS) has been approved by the Scottish Government.

By centralising processing and testing of blood and tissue donations, the new centre will help to ensure the future supply of blood, tissues and cells for all patients across Scotland.

The £36.4 million purpose-built facility will be located at Heriot-Watt Research Park near Edinburgh.

Health Secretary Alex Neil said:

"Having the right facilities in the right place is important to people across Scotland and that is why we are determined to ensure our blood service is delivered from state of the art facilities.

“This new purpose-built facility will help to centralise the processing and testing of the blood which people across Scotland are donating to help others, and will help to ensure the future supply of blood, tissues and cells for all patients.

“It will also deliver investment and opportunities to the local community, and will mean we can continue to provide sustainable, high quality and continually improving healthcare services to patients across Scotland.”

Mary Morgan, Director of the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service (SNBTS) said:

“SNBTS is one of the oldest blood services in the world, and has been at the forefront of innovations for decades. This is a very exciting time for the development of life sciences in Scotland

“This new national centre enables us to modernise not only to carry on providing safe blood, tissues and cells, but also to continue to pursue and discover vital new cellular technologies which can transform patients’ lives in the years ahead.”

The project is due to be completed in 2017 and is part of the Scottish Government’s Non Profit Distributing (NPD) model which will see £750 million of investment in health facilities across Scotland.

It is part of over £2 billion which is being invested in improving NHS facilities over the next three years.