A new national centre for blood-testing in Scotland has been given the go-ahead.

The National Centre for the Scottish National Blood Tranfusion Service (SNBTS) will be built at Heriot-Watt Research Park near Edinburgh.

The £36.4m facility will centralise the processing and testing of blood and tissue donations and will help to ensure the future supply of blood, tissues and cells for all patients across Scotland.

Health Secretary Alex Neil said: "Having the right facilities in the right place is important to people across Scotland and that is why we are determined to ensure our blood service is delivered from state of the art facilities.

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"This new purpose-built facility will help to centralise the processing and testing of the blood which people across Scotland are donating to help others, and will help to ensure the future supply of blood, tissues and cells for all patients.

"It will also deliver investment and opportunities to the local community, and will mean we can continue to provide sustainable, high quality and continually improving healthcare services to patients across Scotland."

Mary Morgan, Director of the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service (SNBTS) said:

"SNBTS is one of the oldest blood services in the world, and has been at the forefront of innovations for decades. This is a very exciting time for the development of life sciences in Scotland

"This new national centre enables us to modernise not only to carry on providing safe blood, tissues and cells, but also to continue to pursue and discover vital new cellular technologies which can transform patients’ lives in the years ahead."

It is expected the project will be completed in 2017.

It will form part of the Scottish Government’s Non Profit Distributing (NPD) model which will see £750m of investment in health facilities across Scotland.

It is part of over £2bn being invested in improving NHS facilities over the next three years.

(IT)