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National supply issue with blood tube products – actions required

August 27, 2021

You may be aware that that there is a global shortage of blood tube products and NHS England has been notified of supply disruption in relation to Becton Dickinson blood specimen collection products. This issue continues to cause concern at a national level. Although BD tubes are not used at SWBH/Black Country Pathology Service, we expect that there will be an impact due to availability issues elsewhere. We are required to follow the latest guidance in order to balance demand. This guidance is to optimise the use of blood tubes and ensure there is no disruption to urgent care and clinical services for patients.

Please review the guidance and actions below but also think about other ways your service can safely reduce test requesting.

Clinical directors and specialty leads have been asked to review the summary list of actions and confirm what steps they will be taking to reduce test requests and/or delay requests for 4-6 weeks following assessment of risk.

Point of care haemoglobin devices to be used where possible

  • Ensure staff use point of care devices have been appropriately quality assured for haemoglobin measurement, e.g. in critical care and theatres, instead of using EDTA tubes.

Minimum retest intervals

  • Follow the guidelines related to RCPath minimum retest intervals to avoid over-testing
    for items such as B12 and thyroid disease.

Encourage add-on testing to reduce the need for blood tube usage

  • Encourage add-on testing by clinicians ordering tests.

Optimise inpatient and assessment unit sampling

  • Only test for a clinical indication in patients and increase the testing interval for monitoring where it is clinically safe to do so.
  • Keep testing levels under active review.
  • Avoid routine group and screen testing unless patient likely to require transfusion.

Genomics testing

  • Genomics is a high priority in the testing of unwell neonates, prenatal screening and cancer diagnosis. Stock should be used for these tests and should be prioritised accordingly to allow these tests to continue uninterrupted.

Reduce non-essential (non-clinically urgent) testing

For more information, read the guidance or talk to your clinical lead if any concerns or queries.