Hague supports the NHS Blood & Transplant Team with their printing requirements
When dealing with blood and transplant materials, the NHS needs to ensure every detail on their labels are accurate and unique. With each blood bag being required to have an exclusive sequential number when processing, it is important that their printers can record and print these accurately. So, when the NHSBT enquired we knew we could help.
The NHSBT were having issues with their existing label duplicators not reading the check digits within the barcodes correctly. Though this sounds like an intermittent issue, producing incorrect labels within its field can be detrimental. If duplicated wrong, there could be a chance of duplicates produced, donated blood not being usable, or even the wrong blood being issued to patients- which can be fatal! As well as the duplications being correct, they also need to be clear and readable across different laboratory equipment as the blood samples are put into analysers for testing.
After speaking with the NHSBT team, we understood that they needed new duplicators for their Quality Monitoring and Manufacturing Laboratories. We worked alongside the NHSBT team to produce two different duplicators, using the GoDEX range of printers, that support the ISBT128 symbology (an NHSBT requirement). For the manufacturers, we provided a duplicator that duplicates Donation Identification Numbers (DIN) and LOT numbers onto small labels. Then for the Quality Monitoring team, we provided a duplicator which duplicates Donation Identification Numbers (DIN) and LOT numbers onto both small and large labels. Within each kit supplied, there was a printer and scanner that easily allowed the customer to ‘plug in and play’. We also ran on-site and Microsoft Teams training for smooth implementation.
“The GoDEX duplicator printers supplied have been received very well by our operations teams in Manufacturing and Quality Monitoring. They are very pleased with the printers and inform they work better than the previous ones in that the analysers have not misread a barcode label.”
They had a special mention for Business Development Manager Lynne Clancy, for the wonderful support she provided and for working closely with the NHSBT team to ensure the printers were just right for their use. Lynne says
“It was great to be able to work directly with the teams in the laboratories who would be using the duplicators on a day-to-day basis. Being physically in the lab with them when processing enabled me to understand their challenges and comprehend how we could help improve their processes by adding functionality into the replicator systems. This involved adding on the Stripper module so that the operator did not have to remove the label from the liner manually.”
For more information or to chat to the team about your Laboratory labelling contact us and we will be in touch.
