The blood cold chain is a series of interconnected activities involving equipment, personnel and processes critical for the safe storage and transportation of blood from collection to transfusion. This publication contains information in relation to: storage and transportation of blood and blood components; blood storage equipment, relating to refrigerators, plasma freezers and platelet agitators; other blood cold chain devices; equipment installation; organising the cold blood chain; preventative maintenance, care and repair of equipment; monitoring and evaluation; and, guidelines for the development of training programmes.