Serious Hazards of Transfusion (SHOT) Annual Report 1996 - 1997 Growing awareness among UK transfusion specialists, haematologists and other clinicians that there is little information on the current safety of the whole transfusion process from blood component production in Transfusion Centre to administration at the bedside. In 1994 a working group of hospital and transfusion service consultants was established as a UK-wide surveillance scheme for the reporting of major transfusion-related complications. The Serious Hazards of Transfusion scheme (SHOT) was subsequently created in November 1996. SHOT findings can be used to: (1) Inform policy within transfusion services; (2) Improve standards of hospital transfusion practice; (3) Aid production of clinical guidelines for the use of blood components; (4) Educate users on transfusion hazards and their prevention. It identifies that hepatitis B core antibodies, HIV p24 antigen and antibodies to HTLV I/II are not mandatory tests in the UK. However with the addition of genomic detection for viruses to the current testing regime will further shorten the ‘window period’ during which a donor may be infectious but test negative. A risk assessment is currently under way to examine the likelihood of new variant CJD being present in, and transmitted by, blood products.