What's the latest in transfusion safety standards?

The Serious Hazards of Transfusion (SHOT) haemovigilance program in the United Kingdom (UK) has released a transformative set of transfusion safety standards to promote and embed safe clinical and laboratory practices. They're not designed to replace but instead complement other regulatory and best practice recommendations.

What’s New? 

• Unified safety framework: These standards consolidate key themes from previous SHOT reports into a single, actionable framework.
• Self-assessment tool: An editable baseline assessment tool to guide prioritisation of improvement initiatives to be released at the end of this month.
• No more annual SHOT recommendations: Instead of yearly updates, SHOT will focus on long-term compliance with these standards.

Since 1996, SHOT has been collecting and analysing anonymised information on transfusion incidents and reactions from all healthcare organisations that are involved in the transfusion of blood and blood components in the UK.

Heads up: Updated ANZSBT Guidelines

The ANZSBT has released its 2^nd edition of the Guidelines for transfusion and immunohaematology laboratory practice.

These important guidelines are used by laboratories providing transfusion services and immunohaematology testing and augment requirements for laboratory accreditation.

This revised edition incorporates recent changes recognising the transfusion support or immunohaematological testing for patients in different settings, including:

• Managing patients being treated with therapeutic monoclonal antibodies that interfere with pretransfusion testing.
• Changes to blood selection in emergency and other specific settings in accordance with national statements.
• The use of genotyping in the obstetric setting, including for non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT).
• More detailed information on the support for allogeneic stem cell and solid organ transplantation.

Are you a member of a health service blood management committee? If so, new guidelines are a great opportunity for the committee to review its transfusion activities. To get started, you could:

• Circulate the guidelines amongst the committee.
• Place them on the agenda for discussion at the next meeting.
• Identify your existing policies and procedures that may need updating based on the changes.
• Agree an action plan to update relevant local policies and procedures.

Alburex^® AU storage temperature changes

CSL Behring has revised the storage temperature requirements for its albumin products Alburex® 5 AU and Alburex® 20 AU.

As outlined in the updated product information for these products, the new requirement is to ‘Store below 30 °C (do not freeze)’. Previously, the maximum allowable storage temperature was 25 °C. No other specifications or requirements for the products have changed.

There are no changes to Lifeblood processes or the transportation of Alburex® AU products to you. However, it's possible that there may be a period where you have stocks of Alburex® AU with both the old and new storage temperature requirements and will need to store them accordingly.

If you do have any queries regarding these changes, please contact CSL Behring Medical.

Don't miss the last TP forums for 2025

Everyone in the transfusion community is welcome to join the last four forums - which support our 'Transfusion practitioner microcredentials' - and take place on the first Wednesday of each month at 11.30am (AEST). 

Wednesday 6 August

We'll be facilitating a discussion of the recent publication, 'How do we leverage implementation science to support and accelerate uptake of clinical practice guidelines in transfusion medicine'. Feel free to read ahead of the session and how it applies to your practice.

Wednesday 3 September

We're delighted to welcome Rae French, Blood Matters Scientist, who will discuss the recent report, 'O RhD negative red blood cell (RBC) audit report', as well as the relationship between transfusion scientists and TPs.

Wednesday 1 October 

Simon Benson, Scientific Lead with Lifeblood’s Clinical Education Team, will share his thoughts and discuss some practical tips and things to avoid so you can make an impact with your next presentation.

Wednesday 5 November

The final TP forum for 2025 will run through the latest microcredential module - 'Extending the TP role'.

Congratulations and farewell

Anne Canty, Transfusion Nurse Consultant, was honoured to be a guest speaker at ISBT Milan in June. She shared insights on our Transfusion practitioner microcredentials before departing Lifeblood after dedicating 17 years, leaving behind a lasting legacy to empower future generations of TPs.

Do you know how to manage sickle cell disease (SCD) during pregnancy, childbirth and the interpregnancy period?

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently released recommendations for healthcare providers responsible for developing national and local healthcare protocols and policies, as well as managers of maternal and child health program and policymakers.

A total of 21 recommendations were issued by the guideline development group covering:

• medications including supplements and thromboprophylaxis
• prophylactic blood transfusion
• pain and fluid management
• fetal monitoring, timing and mode of birth, and
• interpregnancy care and health service programs.

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