Last year, a family tragedy brought Citrix Account Manager Steve Berry face to face with the work of a Citrix customer — NHS Blood and Transplant.
It was early April 2019 when Steve learned that his younger brother Dave had suffered a massive stroke. Despite being airlifted to hospital, Dave remained gravely ill and passed away three days later.
“My brother was a registered organ donor so, when it became clear he couldn’t be saved, the life support systems were turned off and we were waiting for things to take their course,” Steve says. ”James Broughton, a Specialist Nurse in Organ Donation, approached us. He and his colleague introduced themselves to me and my eldest son. They were from NHS Blood and Transplant, and they were by our side throughout Dave’s final hours.”
Steve, part of the Citrix Public Sector team, had been with NHS Blood and Transplant’s technology team just a few weeks earlier, supporting the health authority’s transition to Citrix Cloud services.
“Sometimes, we don’t always appreciate what our customers do with our technology,” he says. “A traumatic event like this really brings that home to you. It makes it real.”
NHS Blood and Transplant has been a Citrix customer for 21 years and uses the technology to run their desktops and apps to help keep the blood supply for England running smoothly. Citrix provides NHS Blood and Transplant staff with flexible, remote access to the tools they need. Mobile teams can access information wherever they are, and nurses can access their desktops on iPads so they can spend more time with donor families.
Saving Lives Every Day
NHS Blood and Transplant is a joint England and Wales Special Health Authority that provides blood donation services for England and organ donation services for the UK. It also provides donated tissues, stem cells, and cord blood and is an essential part of the NHS, saving and improving lives through public donation.
The service collects nearly 5,000 blood donations at more than 50 locations every day, and in 2020 expects to collect just under 1.5 million donations from blood donors in England. Almost 5,000 people had their lives saved or improved through transplantation last year, and over 1,300 people donated organs.
But more is needed so that more lives can be saved or improved. The service needs more blood donors, especially those from black and Asian backgrounds and from men.
“Last year only 41 percent of new donors were male,” Claire Lewis, Senior Partnership Development Officer at NHS Blood and Transplant says. “Men tend to have higher iron levels and their blood is used for certain rare transfusions and specialist products. We need more men to donate blood for the first time to keep the donor base strong for the future.”
On the transplant side, more than 6,000 people are currently waiting for an organ. Every day, someone in the UK dies waiting for an organ transplant.
NHS Blood and Transplant hopes that a forthcoming change in the law will make it easier to save more lives. From spring 2020, the law in England will change to make organ donation an “opt out” system, where adults will be deemed to have agreed to be an organ donor unless they have recorded a decision not to donate.
You Can Save Lives
Citrix technology also plays a part in ensuring that donated organs are matched with patients as quickly as possible. Some organs, such as livers and hearts must be transported from donor to recipient within a few hours.
“Only when you’re faced with the situation do you really see the complexity of logistics required to match and transport organs,” Steve says. “My brother’s kidneys went from south London to patients in two different corners of the UK. You understand the complexity, but you also appreciate the transformative effect of blood and organ donation.”
You can play a part too by becoming a blood donor and by talking to your family about becoming an organ donor. Learn more at organdonation.nhs.uk and blood.co.uk.
