The World Health Organisation (WHO) new Policy Brief ‘The urgent need to implement Patient Blood Management (PBM)’ was published on 19 October. The policy brief provides the rationale and background information for policymakers and other actors at all levels to implement PBM, calling for health care systems worldwide to implement the practice as a standard of care. Amongst other, it highlights the benefits of PBM implementation for patients, health professionals, policymakers, health care systems, economies and its impact in terms of reducing the demand for blood and blood components, and thus the dependency on transfusion. The policy brief provides an overview of existing barriers to PBM implementation and solutions to tackle these, in order to properly integrate PBM into healthcare. It also outlines that although developed as a strategy to improve outcomes in surgical patients, PBM has now evolved into a comprehensive care paradigm that is now being applied in the care of medical and surgical patients. Access the policy brief here.