P44 Review of Hospital Transfusion Committee Membership and Attendance in the West Midlands

Abstract

Introduction Hospital transfusion committees (HTC) are now well established. Over the last 5 years blood usage has declined by 15%. It is now well established that surgical patients utilise less than 50% of red cells despite initiatives to reduce the number of patients waiting for surgery. It was perceived that physicians were under represented on HTCs. As physicians are responsible for an increasing proportion of blood used we decided to quantify attendance at HTCs.Methods Minutes from 18 Trusts’ HTC meetings held in 2005 and 2006 within the West Midlands were reviewed and job title was recorded for members of and those attending their HTC. Sufficient data was available from 14 HTCs to review their last three meetings. The most common posts/departments represented are as follows: Member Members of X % of HTCs Consultant Haematologist 100 Transfusion Practitioner/Co‐ordinator 89 Anaesthetics 89 Blood Bank Manager/Chief BMS 83 Orthopaedics 61 Obs and Gynae 67 Haematology Lab/Pathology Manager 56 Clinical Risk 61 Consultant Surgeon 56 Matron 44 Remaining categories/groups Member Members of X % of HTCs Paediatrics 50 Clinical Governance 39 A and E Consultant 33 Medical Director 33 Physician 28 Director of Nursing (and Midwifery) 28 Theatres/Recovery 22 PCT Representative 22 Quality Manager 17 Clinical Audit 11 ‘Others’ 89 Invitation and Attendance at HTCs by each group Group % of 42 HTCs to which each group was invited % of 42 HTCs to which each group attended C. Haematologist 100 90 TP/Co‐ordinator 79 76 BB Manager 100 88 Anaesthetics 93 69 Clinical Risk 64 31 Clinical Governance 36 19 C. Surgeon 50 21 Obs and Gynae 64 43 Matron 43 21 Haematology Lab 43 29 C. Physician 7 2 Orthopaedics 64 17 Percentage of 14 Trusts with ≥1 attendance in the last 12 months, by group/member Group % of 14 Trusts with ≥1 attendance in the last 12 months C. Haematologist 100 TP/Co‐ordinator 79 BB Manager 100 Anaesthetics 86 Clinical Risk 36 Clinical Governance 29 C. Surgeon 36 Obs and Gynae 64 Matron 36 Haematology Lab 36 C. Physician 7 Orthopaedics 29 Results Conclusions Of medical staff, physicians are members of only 28% of the HTCs. More worrying is that in the period under review for which there was comprehensive data only once did a physician attend an HTC meeting. There is an urgent need to engage more physicians on to the membership of HTCs and to ensure that they attend, review their current practice and disseminate best practice to their colleagues.