WATER and energy can be conserved. So too with blood.

The Health Sciences Authority (HSA) is pushing for blood conservation at the national level.

Blood conservation involves re-using and recycling the patient's own blood during and after surgery, rather than turning to donor blood.

Dr Diana Teo, HSA's senior director of the Health Services Group, said conserved blood is an additional measure 'to meet the country's blood supply needs in the next five to 10 years'.

'We don't want to wait till an emergency situation like the flu pandemic to come up with alternatives,' she said.

The blood bank needs at least 350 units of blood every day to meet the transfusion needs of hospitals here.

British expert Dafydd Thomas said blood conservation uses a form of technology called cell saver to salvage and return the patient's blood to him.

Blood lost during surgery is mixed with anticoagulant and saline, and pumped into a centrifuge bowl, which separates the red blood cells from other blood products. These red cells are then pumped back into the patient.

Dr Thomas said blood conservation surgery has many advantages. 'By re-using their own blood, patients reduce the risk of infections transmitted through donor blood,' he said.

Britain is the only country where there is a national blood conservation strategy in place.

Dr Teo said Dr Thomas, chairman of the Blood Implementation Group in Wales and representative for Wales on the Chief Medical Officers National Blood Transfusion Committee in England, is the right person to help kick-start the national programme here.

She said the method is already in use at the bigger private and public hospitals. At the National Heart Centre, for instance, a dedicated cell saver is used in 10 per cent of its open heart operations. Between 2005 and the present day, a total of 262 heart patients were operated at the heart centre using this method.

Dr Teo said the HSA will be working with the blood transfusion teams of individual hospitals on the implementation of the programme.

Asked if introducing it would mean fewer people willing to donate blood, Dr Teo said the procedure applies only to certain patients and some types of operations.

Dr Thomas said: 'We conserve energy by switching off the lights. But that doesn't mean that we have to shut down the power station.'