The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) have issued a safety notice into the risk of exposure of laboratory staff to biological agents due to missing clinical information.
Investigations undertaken by the HSE found that workers at diagnostic laboratories were being put at risk of infection because there was missing information on specimen request forms. They found several examples of laboratory staff being exposed to pathogens that could have caused severe disease.
When specimen request forms do not provide sufficient clinical information then staff in laboratories can't identify the appropriate control measures they need to apply in order to manage the risk of exposure and possible infection. These issues arise when clinical information is incomplete, inaccurate or is delayed in being provided to the laboratory.
Those who complete specimen request forms, including GPs, vets, nurses, clinicians, need to include all information that can help staff in the laboratory to assess potential risks.
This includes relevant information on:
The safety notice also raises the issues with clinical information for multiple samples from an individual patient.
It is common that laboratories receive multiple samples relating to an individual patient over a prolonged period of time. The issue is that these often lack relevant clinical information.
There are cases where a lack of effective communication systems to identify multiple samples relating to an individual has caused samples to be inappropriately handled in an unsafe manner in the laboratory.
In order to address this exposure issue, the safety notice sets out actions required by dutyholders.
This includes, ensuring:
For more information, see the:
