Transfusion medicine handbook

1. Introduction

1.1 Audience

Many people play an essential part in ensuring that the right blood components and products are given to the right patient at the right time. This handbook is therefore intended for all staff responsible for prescribing, supplying, transporting, administering, and monitoring blood components and fractionated products. They include:

• Registered medical practitioners, nurses and midwives who assess patients and who prescribe and order blood components and fractionated products to be transfused.
• Phlebotomists and others who collect and send pretransfusion samples.
• Laboratory staff who ensure that blood components are compatible for transfusion.
• Orderlies and other personnel who deliver blood components and fractionated products to hospital wards and clinics where patients are transfused.
• Nurses and other clinical staff who check that, before being administered, the supplied blood components and fractionated products are intended for the identified patient, and who then observe the patient during and after the transfusion.
• Medical and nursing students involved in any of the above activities.
• Telephone operators who may have to make vital contacts in an emergency.