This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.nations had national guidelines. In six of the ten participating hospitals, preoperative anaemia management was organized by anaesthetists. Diagnostics and treatment focused on iron deficiency anaemia which, in most hospitals, was corrected with intravenous iron.Conclusion Implementation and approaches of preoperative anaemia management vary across Europe with a primary focus on treating iron deficiency anaemia. Findings of this survey motivated the hospitals involved to critically evaluate their practice and may also help other hospitals interested in PBM to develop action plans for diagnosis and management of preoperative anaemia.

More than 30% of the world's population are anaemic with serious medical consequences. Red blood cell transfusion is the mainstay to correct anaemia, but it is also one of the top five overused procedures, and carries its own risks. Patient blood management (PBM) is a patient‐centred and multidisciplinary approach to manage anaemia, minimize iatrogenic blood loss and harness tolerance to anaemia to improve patient outcome. Despite resolution, 63·12 of the World Health Organization in 2010 endorsing PBM and current guidelines with evidence‐based recommendations on the use of diagnostic and therapeutic measures, PBM is still not implemented in many hospitals. Here, we present a short review of recent developments in the field of PBM.