Brodie received his first infusion of immunoglobulin, made from donated plasma, when he was just eight weeks old. He now needs it weekly to treat his immune condition.
Australian Red Cross Blood Service

One in three people in Australia will need blood in their lifetime, but only around 3% of the Australian public generously donate towards this vital supply.

The Australian Red Cross Blood Service’s role of managing the collection, testing, processing, and distribution of life-saving blood and blood products is both a challenge and privilege. We’re proud to deliver one of the world’s safest supplies of these products as well as world-class services in transplantation and immunogenetics.

In 2015/2016 our dedicated Blood Service team worked together to forecast and meet Australia’s need for blood products. Even though demand is constantly changing, for 93% of the year our inventory was within the levels required to comfortably meet requirements.

Demand for red blood cells continued to decline by another 3.4% over the financial year. This is thanks to strong leadership by the medical sector and government in ensuring appropriate blood product usage and wastage reduction, and transforming the latest research into everyday healthcare. In contrast, the demand for plasma, a versatile component of blood used to make 18 different medical treatments, rose again this year. We delivered a record 601.2 tonnes of plasma for fractionation.

A world-class blood service

In 2015/2016 our dedicated Blood Service team worked together to forecast and meet Australia’s need for blood products. Even though demand is constantly changing, for 93% of the year our inventory was within the levels required to comfortably meet requirements.

Demand for red blood cells continued to decline by another 3.4% over the financial year. This is thanks to strong leadership by the medical sector and government in ensuring appropriate blood product usage and wastage reduction, and transforming the latest research into everyday healthcare. In contrast, the demand for plasma, a versatile component of blood used to make 18 different medical treatments, rose again this year. We delivered a record 601.2 tonnes of plasma for fractionation.

Surplus and improved efficiency

By focusing on leaner, more efficient operations we delivered a $5.4 million surplus, after providing for a return of $42 million to the government. This is our seventh consecutive surplus. Through our efforts over the last two years, the Blood Service was able to agree to a reduction in funding of $18.5 million in 2015/2016, in order to reinvest the savings in meeting the continued growth in demand for plasma products. In addition, we increased our efficiency in processing blood by 6.5% and in testing by 17.7%.

Better service for our donors

Donor satisfaction rose to 92.6% thanks to the implementation of several measures to improve the donor experience. These include technology improvements at our contact centre, a new ‘thank you’ SMS to let donors know when and where their blood was sent, a refresh of our public website, the opening of six new donor centres, and a technology upgrade to 25 mobile blood collection centres.

Contributions beyond blood

We continued growing our contributions to the health and wellbeing of Australians in ways that leverage our existing expertise and infrastructure. We’re planning the pilot of a new human milk bank and investigating opportunities in other areas, including faecal microbiota transplantation banking and platelet lysates.

Transplantation and immunogenetics

We deliver transplantation-related services including tissue typing for transplants, bone marrow search coordination, cord blood banking and more. This year, our highly specialised transplantation team proudly participated in Australia’s largest ever live kidney exchange.

Frozen blood for the military

After five years of research and development, this year we were thrilled to begin the manufacture of frozen blood for use by the Australian Defence Force. We developed technologies to cryopreserve whole blood and platelets, which significantly extends their short shelf-lives and gives Australian troops greater access to life-saving blood products in the field.

New Deed of Agreement

We signed a new Deed of Agreement with the National Blood Authority, the government statutory agency that manages and coordinates the supply of blood products and services. This provides certainty about what’s required from the Blood Service for the next nine years and allows us to plan effectively for the future in an ever-changing blood sector.

Thank you

In the past year, all of us at the Blood Service have worked hard to move closer to the goal of being at the top level of international blood operators. We want to thank everyone involved in this successful year: our generous 460,000 generous volunteer donors; our dedicated staff members and volunteers; our health sector stakeholders and other partners; and Australian state and national governments, which continue to fully fund the provision of blood products and services. Without these people and organisations there would be no life-saving blood and transplants for the Australian community.