General membership

The Pan-European Blood Safety Alliance (PBSA), is a patient-driven, non-governmental organisation, which was formally established on the 11th of February 2005.

The founding of the PBSA was initiated by eight organisations, embracing member patients whose treatment relies on the transfusion of blood or its products, from six different European countries, with the vision and mission to promote the right of every European patient in need, to receive the safest possible blood or its products.

The PBSA is committed to every European patient in need of acute or chronic transfusion of blood to:

• Promote the fundamental right and duty to safety of all patients in need of blood or its products.
• Ensure the availability of adequate amounts of safe blood or its products to meet the specific needs for treatment of every patient.
• Support the education of all interested health professionals with the aim of eliminating the human error that may occur over the course of events from blood donation to transfusion of blood.
• Promote the implementation of and access to proactive technologies, which may constitute improvement to the level of safety of blood in Europe.
• Support the implementation of haemovigilance, to enable identification and improvement of the causes of adverse effects related to transfusions.
• Support the work of the National Health Authorities in providing adequate and free of charge access to blood transfusion services, and in promoting and ensuring the implementation of European Union (EU) legislation (Directives) related to the quality standards of blood, its products and transfusion services, including stem cell preparation and storage across Europe.
• The PBSA aims to create a forum for interactive discussion and exchange of opinion between patients, healthcare professionals, health policy makers and relevant industries. It is hoped and anticipated that this unique patients' alliance could act as a point of reference to the national health authorities, the relevant European Commission and other European institution, when seeking the opinion of patients on blood safety.