South Tees patients to benefit from life-saving 24/7 emergency transfusion service
This will be a lifeline for patients living with sickle cell disease
Last updated 1st May 2025
People living with sickle cell disease across the Tees Valley and North Yorkshire are to benefit from a new service that will provide red blood cell exchanges 24/7, treating patients in times of sickle cell crisis, which can be life-threatening, as well as running a regular exchange programme, allowing more patients to be treated and ending waiting lists.
A collaboration between NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) and South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, will see NHSBT’s Therapeutic Apheresis Services (TAS) team offer a red cell exchange service, operating out of The James Cook University Hospital.
The collaboration will be a lifeline for patients living with sickle cell disease, who may regularly need red cell exchanges, which is where their misshapen red blood cells are removed and replaced with healthy donor blood. An emergency service will also run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, to treat sickle cell patients who go in to crisis and need an emergency exchange. Sickle cell crises can be sudden, extremely painful and sometimes life-threatening and need immediate treatment.
Dami Olorunfemi, 40, from Middlesborough was the first patient to be treated by NHSBT TAS nurses as a part of the collaboration. She will go on to have a red cell exchange every six weeks to manage her sickle cell disease and keep her symptoms under control. She says: “Having a local red cell exchange service is fantastic – being able to pop over to James Cook to get my red cell exchanges every six weeks is really convenient and knowing that there is somebody there should I go in to crisis and need that emergency treatment is really reassuring.
“Living with sickle cell disease is really difficult – it does have a big impact on your life. Having a red cell exchange makes a huge difference to my quality of life and being able to get them locally, whenever I need them, makes life easier still.”
Sickle cell disease is the country’s fastest growing genetic blood disorder and is more prevalent in people of Black heritage. The serious, lifelong condition can cause organ failure, strokes, loss of vision and can be fatal.
Patients living with sickle cell disease produce unusually shaped red blood cells that can cause problems as they do not live as long as healthy blood cells and can block blood vessels. It is estimated that there are around 17,000 people with sickle cell in the UK.
Teresa Baines, Head of Therapeutic Apheresis Services at NHS Blood and Transplant, says: “Red cell exchanges are crucial in the care of a lot of patients with sickle cell disease, with the demand for this service having doubled in the last year alone, so we are thrilled to be able to collaborate with South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to offer this service. It means that more patients can be treated both routinely and in emergency situations and that waiting lists can be closed, as every patient will now be able to get the service that they need.
“This programme wouldn’t be possible without the generosity of people who give blood, so I would encourage anybody who is able to come forward to donate to help provide life-enhancing and life-saving treatments like this one and so many others.”
Dr Dianne Plews, Consultant Haematologist at The James Cook University Hospital, says: “We are caring for an increasing number of children and adults living with sickle cell disease in Teesside and having a full red cell exchange service from NHS Blood and Transplant’s TAS team will mean that we can ensure this service is available to all our patients who need it, whenever they need it. It is a significant time to be caring for patients with sickle cell disease as we are seeing more treatments become available across the UK.”
A single patient receiving regular red cell exchanges can require blood from up to 100 donors each year. NHSBT’s TAS units (nine, across the country) carry out an average of around 2,400 red cell exchanges every year. The new South Tees programme begins today, Monday 31st March 2025.