Dr Sarah Wise, Associate Professor at the Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA), is leading a new project examining how climate‑related events could affect the NHS Blood and Transplant service (NHSBT). The research will focus on identifying points in the blood supply network that may be vulnerable to disruption during extreme weather such as heatwaves and flooding.
The project, Strengthening healthcare resilience to climate extremes: a spatial modelling framework, is one of seven projects funded through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Climate Change and Health Development Awards, which distributed around £700,000 in January 2026.
The research team includes Dr Dimitra Salmanidou and Emily Dubrovska (UCL Advanced Research Computing Centre), Dr Nicola Moretti (the Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction) and Tom Cowdrey, Head of Business Continuity at NHSBT.
Modelling the blood supply under pressure
The blood service is a distributed network involving donation, processing, storage and delivery of temperature‑sensitive material. It depends on volunteer donors and coordinated logistics to meet patient needs. Disruptions to transport or cooling systems can rapidly affect blood availability.
Extreme weather can intensify this risk. The team will develop an agent‑based model to map how different parts of the network interact and where climate‑related pressures could have the greatest impact. The aim is to create a digital tool to support NHSBT in planning for emergencies and maintaining reliable access to blood supplies.
The research will examine several questions, including whether processing centres should be prioritised differently across geographical areas, whether specific patient groups may be disproportionately affected and whether strengthening cooling infrastructure or adopting more flexible load balancing approaches would be more effective. The goal is to identify where the system is most likely to experience pressure and how these risks could be mitigated.
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