Introduction
- Undoubtedly you will be asked at numerous points to obtain bloods on a patient.
- The Blue ‘butterfly’ needle will allow easy access, and available on each ward.
- Tip: if you feel it will be difficult to obtain a sufficient amount of blood, obtain some of the paediatric sample bottles from either A+E/Paediatrics.
Daily Bloods
- Your team may require daily bloods/weekend bloods be ordered on your patients. As you will be busy with other responsibilities, the hospital has a phlebotomy service running each day from 08:00 – 13:30.
- Once you have completed the requests, you can leave them in the phlebotomy folder that is located on each ward.
Note
- Try to have all requests placed the evening before, as the night staff on the ward tend to organise the bloods into corridor/main ward.
- The phlebotomy service is quite busy – ensure that bloods you are requesting are required i.e. don’t order complete FBCs, LFTs, U+Es, COAG, CRP, ESR etc. when all that is required is U+E and FBC. Some patients will not require daily bloods.
- Samples will be rejected by the lab if they do not contain a minimum information – two patient details, consultant name, date of sample, time blood taken, doctor’s signature and bleep.
- Don’t forget to label the bottle as well, some wards have handheld PDAs for this.
- Patients addressographs cannot be used and will be rejected.
- Tip: Try to submit the requests while on the ward round (provided you are not busy) as this will save you having to return to the ward to do it later.
- 2D and 1C have nurses trained in Phlebotomy, and no Phlebotomy service. You will most likely be called if they fail.
- You must state “for peripheral bloods” on forms for a patient with PICC line.