Background: The aim of the study was to evaluate the basic aspects of the activity of the Polish Blood Transfusion Service in 2011. Materials and methods: Retrospective analysis of the 2011 — data supplied by the Regional Blood Centers.Results: In the year 2011, blood and blood components were collected in 21 Polish Regional Blood Centers and their 158 local collection sites; 9 856 mobile collections were also organized. In the same year, the overall number of blood donors was 608 590, the majority of which were non-remunerated donors (607,737 — including 45,415 family donors and 816 autologous donors). The most frequent were whole blood collections (1,135,376) and the rarest — apheresis granulocyte collections (146 procedures) and RBCs collections (193 procedures). Whole blood donations were performed in local collection sites (48.8 %), in Regional Blood Centers (26.6%) and mobile collection sites (24.6%). The most frequently prepared blood components were red blood cell concentrates (RBCs — 1,126,768) and fresh frozen plasma (FFP — 1,190,795 FFP units, 31.7% for clinical use). The number of platelet concentrates (PCs) amounted to 40 865 apheresis and 57 706 whole blood derived. Additional processing methods (leukocyte depletion, irradiation) were applied more frequently to PCs (79.79% leukocyte-depleted, 53.39% irradiated) than to RBCs (13.05% leukocytedepleted, 5.56% irradiated). Pathogen reduction technologies were applied to 7.71% PCs and 4.42% FFP units issued for transfusion. Conclusions: The data reported in this study may prove useful for evaluation of various aspects of the activity of Polish blood centers and for practice-benchmarking with benefit to the transfusion community.