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Unique pet plasma service celebrates first birthday

The lives of hundreds of Britain’s dogs have been saved thanks to the Pet Blood Bank UK which celebrates its first birthday this month (March).

PBBuk, the nation’s first charity to collect, process, store and supply canine blood products, was launched in March last year and marked the first time animal lovers were able to have access to a UK-wide blood service for their pets.

It has been a busy year for PBBuk. They have 420 regular donors from across the country on their register and have collected 600 units of blood cells. They have also:

· set up a board of trustees

· built a dedicated team (including a number of volunteers)

· run a series of transfusion seminars

· Launched its first series of monthly blood collection sessions, travelling the UK collecting donations from dogs from Stirling to Essex.

Wendy Barnett, Executive Director of PBBuk, is a qualified veterinary nurse with a diploma in surgical nursing. She and her team have worked tirelessly throughout the year to collect donations from dogs across the UK, process the blood and deal with the administration of the charity.

Commenting on PBBuk’s first anniversary, she said: “The year has absolutely flown by and I’m excited about the direction in which the blood bank is heading.

“We’ve held over 50 donor collection sessions and have seen some donors return four times so we’ve been getting to know them and their owners well.

“In acute emergency situations patients often die for want of blood. Our products are making a huge difference as vets are able to have blood products ready to help save injured or sick dogs in life or death situations.

“As more and more people find out about the service we’ve been more and more in demand and have been really busy both collecting blood and sending plasma and packed red blood cells out to veterinary practices and hospitals.”

The pet blood bank carries out approximately two blood collection sessions per week and has recently developed monthly collection sessions at a veterinary practice in Leicester. Blood is generally collected at practices near to PBBuk’s Loughborough base because of time restrictions on collecting and processing blood products effectively – although the charity has travelled as far north as Stirling.

PBBuk is now looking to purchase a fully equipped mobile unit to enable it to organise blood collection sessions anywhere in the UK. The blood would be collected and processed immediately which would allow dogs across the country to donate.

With a long-term plan to make transfusion medicine available for all UK pets, the Pet Blood Bank is currently researching the development of a feline service which would provide blood collected from UK pet cats – following the same high welfare and ethical standards as for their donor dogs.

Wendy continued, “PBBuk has come a long way within a year and we’re looking forward to developing the services we offer.

“During the next year we’d like to expand by raising enough funds to purchase a mobile unit and roll out donations even further across the UK.

“Without owners bringing their dogs along to donate and the veterinary profession supporting us by hosting blood collection sessions and purchasing our blood products we would simply not exist.

“We are looking forward to continuing to build on our relationships with the owners and veterinary professionals and I’m very positive about the future of the charity. Of course, we are grateful to our sponsors Vets Now as undoubtedly without their support and backing we would not have been able to achieve the number of successes we have.”

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