Dr Sharran Grey

Haematology Consultant Clinical Scientist

• Lancashire Haematology Centre, based at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and providing services across Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
• Honorary Haematology Consultant Clinical Scientist, Bolton NHS Foundation Trust
• Associate Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University
• Serious Hazards of Transfusion Working Expert for Transfusion-Associated Circulatory Overload (TACO)

Awarded an OBE in the 2021 New Year Honours for Services to Blood Transfusion and Patient Care

Dr Grey has worked for the NHS for 34 years, with Blood Transfusion being her area of specialist practice and responsibility throughout most of her career. She is also the consultant lead/laboratory director for the Haematology/Transfusion laboratories, and lead consultant for Clinical Transfusion at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS FT and Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS FT. Her direct patient care responsibilities include haematology diagnostic clinics and a joint obstetric haematology clinic.

She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists, British Blood Transfusion Society, and the Academy for Healthcare Science and member of the British Society for Haematology.

She has always been focussed on research and innovation that improves patients’ care and experience of their healthcare. Her doctoral research on ‘accelerated blood transfusion’ allowed patients to be selected for faster blood transfusions, which meant they spent less time in healthcare settings, had a more comfortable experience, and also a more efficient use of NHS resources. She won the NHS England Chief Scientific Officer’s Award in 2017 for this research.

Her research also led to the development of a ‘Red Cell Dosage Calculator’: a web App designed to more accurately dose the amount of blood a patient needs to correct their anaemia. This not only improved the effectiveness of blood transfusions for more patients, but also helped conserve precious donor blood. This work was started while she worked for Bolton NHS Foundation Trust where she is now an Honorary Consultant Clinical Scientist to ensure she can continue to support these innovations for Bolton. She now works for Lancashire Haematology Centre based at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and is working on introducing these innovations there as well. She is also working in partnership with Technical Solutions Worldwide Ltd in order to share good practice and make the web App available to the wider NHS.

She also has an unpaid expert role with the UK Haemovigilance Scheme: Serious Hazards of Transfusion (SHOT), where for the past five years she has assessed data on patients who develop lung complications during blood transfusion. She combined aspects of her research with analysis of this data to develop tools for clinicians to identify patients who are at risk of these complications to make their transfusion as safe as possible. SHOT now recommends the use of the ‘Transfusion-Associated Circulatory Overload (TACO) risk assessment’ to all hospitals in the UK. She has gained an international reputation in pulmonary complications of transfusion and works on an international level in the advancement of knowledge in this area.

“Blood transfusion is life-saving, and is part of the backbone of a hospital as so many patients rely on it to get them through surgery, trauma, childbirth, chemotherapy and many other medical conditions. A blood transfusion starts with the blood donor and ends with the patient and I am part of a huge multi-professional team supporting that process. Everything I do, and decision I make starts with the patient: whether this has been for research and innovation, the services I am responsible for, or my service to the individual patients in my care. None of this is possible without the amazing people who I work with across the NHS and beyond. It is an honour and a privilege for my individual contribution to be recognised in this way, to be a role-model for my profession as a Clinical Scientist, and to be part of our wonderful NHS”