THE NHS Blood and Transplant service has announced a series of measures to help save lives and money over the next five years.

Each year two people die waiting for a suitable organ for transplant from East Lancashire and there are currently 73 people on the transplant waiting list from the area.

Around 25 units of blood are needed each day at the Royal Blackburn Hospital – nearly 9,000 a year.

The cost cuts will enable the service to reduce the price of units of blood, delivering savings that can be reinvested into frontline patient care.

Aims include modernising blood collection, delivering the 50 per cent growth in deceased organ donation set by the organ donation taskforce, working with hospitals to integrate transfusion services, developing unique specialist services in tissues, stem cells, diagnostics and apheresis-based therapies.

The service supplies life-saving products that are needed by NHS patients.

Chief executive, Lynda Hamlyn, said: “Our ambition is simple – to be demonstrably the best service of our type in the world.

Our strategic plan maps out how, over the next five years, we will achieve this ambition.

“The new plan builds on our success in driving up safety and quality standards and driving down costs.

“We are proud of our progress in recent years and privileged that our donors trust us to turn their altruistic and generous donations of blood, organs, tissues and stem cells into ways we can bring hope to families and lifesaving treatments for patients."