Clinical and scientific guidelines are usually written by an expert group drawn from relevant areas of practice. Guidelines will be evidence based and in the case of guidelines from the British Committee for Standards in Haematology, since 2010 the GRADE nomenclature is used.
The World Health Organisation (WHO)
WHO makes available standards for blood transfusion safety via its website http://www.who.int/bloodsafety/en/
Standards in the United Kingdom (UK)
Within the UK blood transfusion is regulated by the Blood Safety and Quality Regulations (2005/50) although these a specifically for laboratory practice.
Clinical Standards are mainly defined in Clinical Guidelines from the British Committee for Standards in Haematology, http://www.b-s-h.org.uk and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance
Additionally, NHS England publish a list of Never Events that are utilised UK-wide
https://www.england.nhs.uk/patientsafety/never-events/
Each country of the United Kingdom has clinical standards in relation to blood component transfusion. These may be specific standards for clinical blood transfusion or part of the wider healthcare standards and can be accessed within each country from the following links.
England: Care Quality Commission
The Fundamental Standards, 2015
http://www.cqc.org.uk/content/fundamental-standards
Scotland: Health Improvement Scotland
Clinical Standards – Blood Transfusion, 2006
(Used to be QIS standards but can’t find what it is now)
Northern Ireland: Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety (DHSSPS)
Better Blood Transfusion 3 NI, 2011
http://nitransfusion.com/hss-md-17-2011.pdf
Wales: Welsh Government
Health and Care Standards, 2015, Standard 2.8
http://www.wales.nhs.uk/governance-emanual/health-and-care-standards