Audits and Surveys for East of England

Audit is an important part of clinical governance and clinical effectiveness. The terms of reference set out by the National Blood Transfusion Committee for the Regional Transfusion Committee (RTC) have specific objectives (01.2)

As a clinical working group of the RTC the Transfusion Practitioner Network are responsible for developing and promoting regional benchmarking tools and regional audits as agreed at RTC. The East of England Transfusion Practitioner Group has always been active in this area but during the Covid pandemic activity reduced – we are now recovering.

EoE RTC have always looked at levels of wastage of O negative red cells – the aim of this audit is to identify across the region how O negative is used (for O negative patients, emergencies, clinical reasons, to avoid expiry and finally, wastage.

The aim is to develop a 2 yearly cycle of 2 audit or benchmarking exercises/year. 

If anyone in the region has suggestions for audit or benchmarking please contact eoertc@nhsbt.nhs.uk 

This is ongoing data collection of WBIT incidents via Snap Survey – going forwards reports will be provided at RTC meetings to encourage discussion of the issues and identify areas for improvement.

The aim of this audit was to benchmark bedside transfusion practice across the region to Blood Safety and Quality Regulation requirements, NICE Transfusion guidelines (NG24) and finally the British Society of Haematology guidelines for transfusion practice 2017. The results are yet to be discussed.