The service is a Crown entity responsible to New Zealand's Parliament and is governed by a Board appointed by the Minister of Health.

[3] The New Zealand Blood Service (NZBS) was formed on 1 July 1998, when the Health Amendment Act 1998 was passed by Parliament.

NZBS was created to provide the people of New Zealand with safe, appropriate and timely access to blood and tissue products and related services to meet their health needs.

[6] On 14 December 2020, the NZBS amended its donation policies to reduce the blood deferral period for gay and bisexual men as well as male sex workers from 12 to 3 months.

This restriction had been in place since 2000 and had excluded people who had lived in the United Kingdom, France and Ireland between 1980 and 1996 for at least six months from donating blood and plasma in New Zealand.

Within the 20 District Health Board (DHB) Blood Bank laboratories also perform pre-transfusion testing in line with defined quality standards.