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Haematology Lab southern trust

Posted By vmcc

"Haematology Lab southern trust"

About: Craigavon Area Hospital / Haematology ward – ward 5

(as the patient),

I had bloods taken at my GP surgery, there was a problem with the computer system and the forms accompanying the samples had to be hand written. The nurse checked all the details twice, in fact the whole appointment took about 40 minutes but in spite of this the samples were rejected by the lab and had to be repeated!! “ insufficient information “ was the reason given.

Could a phone call not have solved this?  I understand everyone is under pressure but aren’t we all working towards the same goal?

This means that I have longer to wait for results and treatment adding to my frustration.

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Responses

Response from Head of Laboratory and Pathology Services, Laboratory and Pathology Services, Southern Health and Social Care Trust 2 years ago
We are preparing to make a change
Southern Health and Social Care Trust

Submitted on 05/05/2021 at 12:40
Published on Care Opinion at 15:15

Thank you for taking the time to notify us of this issue, we really do appreciate your help in improving services.

Unfortunately without specific details we cannot comment specifically on these particular samples, however we are really sorry for the frustration and inconvenience you have experienced.

Many thousands of samples are processed every day in Northern Ireland laboratories and a significant number will have critical information missing, information that is crucial to the analysis or the interpretation of the result.

Contacting GP's (as many will have experienced) can be extremely difficult and given the numbers of calls that would be required would make it impossible currently.

However your point is well made and everyone suffers from a rejected sample. After discussion with key personnel there are steps that we believe we could take that would help reduce incidents such as this, not least, for example, GP's agreeing to a dedicated line to take such queries.

We hope that this is helpful.

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Response from Geoff Kennedy, Head of Laboratory and Pathology Services, Laboratory and Pathology Services, Southern Health and Social Care Trust nearly 2 years ago
We have made a change
Geoff Kennedy
Head of Laboratory and Pathology Services, Laboratory and Pathology Services,
Southern Health and Social Care Trust

Submitted on 20/07/2022 at 18:02
Published on Care Opinion on 21/07/2022 at 09:00

Further to the response above we have now introduced dedicated GP lines, this means that lab staff don’t have to keep hanging on waiting to speak to someone at the GP practice so this should be a significant improvement.

This story was shared with senior staff as an aid to go the extra mile where possible, acknowledging the pressures and resource issues.

Thank you again for your feedback

Best wishes

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