Welcome to the South East Coast RTC
NEWS Platelet Transfusions
Indications for the use of platelet transfusions in adults and children produced by the Platelet Triggers Working Group are available on the Policies page.
Time to Transfuse!
The South East Coast RTC and South East Transfusion Practitoners will hold a joint education day entitled 'Time to Transfuse!' on 22nd November.Further details and application form can be found on the calendar.
Right Blood, Right Patient, Right Time
The Royal College of Nursing guidance on improving transfusion practice entitled 'Right blood, right patient, right time' was revised in April and can be downloaded from the RCN website.
Introduction of attendance fee for RTC education conferences
We have reviewed our calendar of events and finances for 2013 and reluctantly decided to join the majority of RTCs around the country and introduce a small attendance fee for regional education conferences. The current economic climate has forced us to revise our policy of not charging for events. Our small budget has remained at the same level for the past 3 years despite delegate rates and room hire costs rising sharply over the same period. In addition sponsors are becoming increasingly cautious about the sums they spend on events.
From April 2012 a non refundable fee of £10 per delegate will be charged at the time of booking a place at our regional educational conferences. This will allow us to continue the RTC mission of promoting safe transfusion practice across the South East Coast region with high quality, well organised educational events. We hope you will continue to support these events. Letter to HTC Chairs (pdf 48KB)
National Comparative Audit (NCA) - planned audit programme 2013/14
| Audit | Scheduled start | Scheduled report |
| 2012 Audit of the Use of Anti-D | Spring 2013 | December 2013 |
| 2013 Audit of Management of Patients in Neuro Critical Care Units | Spring 2013 | December 2013 |
| 2013 Audit of the Management of patients with Heamoglobinopathies | Autumn 2013 | Spring 2014 |
| 2013 Audit of Patient Information and Consent | Autumn 2013 | Spring 2014 |
Link to NCA audit of blood transfusion login page
Around the country
Do look at other regions' web pages where you will find policies and education tools that the authors are happy to share, for example the South West RTC education resources page.
AAGBI massive haemorrhage guideline
A safety guideline on transfusion 'Blood Transfusion and the Anaesthetist - Management of Massive Haemorrhage (2010)' is available on the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland website.
Measuring compliance with BBT3
The latest results of the survey of the implementation of the Health Service Circular 2007/001 'Better Blood Transfusion - Safe and Appropriate Use of Blood' are available on the BBT page of this site. The East Midlands RTC produced this action plan (Word doc 89KB) to help monitor compliance with BBT.
Massive haemorrhage toolkit
The North West RTC's guidelines group has produced a massive haemorrhage toolkit for hospital transfusion teams and committees. The toolkit includes flow charts outlining the management of massive haemorrhage in adults and children and by laboratory staff, and a seven step guide to coordinating the response. These flow charts and guide can be downloaded from the North West RTC area of the website and adapted by Trusts to meet their individual requirements and local constraints.
NHSLA standards 2011/12
The NHSLA Risk Management Standards for 2011/12 have been issued. See page 76 of the document entitled 'NHSLA Acute, Community, MH & LD and Independent Sector Standards 2011/12' for changes to the wording of the requirements for transfusion.
SaBTO patient consent for blood transfusion
The recommendations on patient consent for blood transfusion and supporting documents launched at the SaBTO open meeting on 11 October 2011 are available on the BBT toolkit. The full report of SaBTO's work on patient consent is on the Department of Health website.
SHOT 2011 report
This report and summary can be found on the SHOT website.
Competency-based training workbooks
In response to the NPSA Safer Practice Notice 14 'Right patient, right blood' the South East RTC produced a series of workbooks, marking templates and answer sheets. The three workbooks are available as pdfs on the education page.
We aim to make your local RTC site the first place you think of looking online for transfusion related information. If you have material you would like published please contact Emma Whitmore or Mary Sandillon the South East Coast RTC website representatives. The site includes these areas:
If you have ideas about other information you would like to see on the RTC site please contact Sheena Cameron, Website Development Manager.
