Recycling blood: sharing the benefits of cell salvage

This paper examines the service-wide costs to the English NHS that are associated with a Hospital Trust expanding the utilisation of cell salvage techniques as an alternative to using donated blood collected from volunteer donors. Costs in the respective NHS organisations should not be viewed in isolation. Significant savings can be realised by adopting a collaborative approach to expand the use of cell salvage techniques. In time, the associated increase in cell salvage utilisation will generate cost savings at the National Blood Service, with more immediate realisable savings arising within Hospital Trust budgets.