Clinical samples 'wrongly labelled'

12 April 2012

Tens of thousands of clinical samples were wrongly labelled when they arrived at NHS pathology laboratories, an investigation has found.

A further 11,712 specimens were incorrectly labelled by lab staff, according to information reportedly obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

The survey of every NHS trust, of which 120 replied, found 365,608 specimens were mislabelled before they arrived at laboratories.

More4 News, who obtained the information, also reported 46 cases had been recorded where mislabelling was found to be related to delays in patients' treatment and even deaths.

Consultant for John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, and spokesman for Royal College of Pathologists Professor John Kay told More4 News: "Our laboratory, like many others, is very concerned about this. Most of those errors actually occurred because we are using handwritten request cards, they then come into the laboratory, we have to copy type them and that's where these errors are coming into the system."

He continued: "In a small number of those examples, there will be really serious problems. A good example of that are blood transfusions - if the specimen that comes into the laboratory is wrong then the blood product that goes out is going to be wrong and some of them will be important things like the diagnosis of cancer."

But a Department of Health spokeswoman said a "tiny fraction" of samples were affected: "This issue needs to be looked at in the context of the number of pathology tests the NHS carries out. In England the NHS tests and reports on 700 million pathology samples a year, so this amount of mislabelled samples represents a tiny fraction of the total (0.05%).

"The NHS makes every effort to reduce mislabelling errors and only a very tiny fraction of the total number of pathology tests carried out in English NHS laboratories in a year contribute to a serious adverse impact on patients.

"Many of these labelling errors happen outside the laboratory, with very few the result of error inside labs, where bar codes are almost universally used for patient/sample identification.

"The Department of Health takes the issue of patient safety in pathology very seriously. We are currently promoting the use of electronic requests for laboratory tests in primary care, and similar systems are also being deployed in hospitals, reducing the risk to patients by producing a 2D barcode unique to the patient."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in