Courier Service

Courier Run

Policy Statement
Laboratory specimens will be collected from General Practitioners in the South Inner City of Dublin and delivered to St James’s Hospital laboratory, in a secure, effective and structured manner. This service will also allow for the delivery of laboratory results to the named practices.

Aim
The aim of this initiative is to facilitate the phlebotomy service provided by the GP’s within the partnership by implementing a co-ordinated and effective system for transporting medical specimens to the laboratory in St. James’s Hospital and returning test results to the GP’s who use this transport service.

Objectives are to:   

• Reduce valuable time presently spent by GP’s in organising the transport of specimens to the laboratory.
• Enhance service provision by returning tests results more speedily
• Provide a more effective, convenient and accessible service to the patient
• Ensure specimens are transported in accordance with EU Regulations on the Transportation of Dangerous Goods.

 Operational Plan

• A courier service has been contracted to collect blood and other specimens from identified GP practices within the partnership and deliver same to St. James’s Hospital Central Laboratory.
• Due to the cost involved in calling to individual practices, some GP’s have been grouped together for economy of scale purposes. Specimens must be dropped into the identified collection point for your area, by the identified time( Appendix 1).
• Collection of specimens from GP’s surgeries will take place between the hours of 12.00 and 13.30 each day.( Monday - Friday). Identified GP’s will be allocated an agreed time for when the courier will call to their practice.
• All specimens must arrive in St James’s before 14.00 in order to ensure that tests can be carried out on the day they arrive.
• Telephone extension numbers for the laboratory in St. James’s Hospital will be provided for each practice to allow for enhanced communication. 

Specimens taken after the courier has called, should be treated as follows:

1. Blood samples taken for the purpose of biochemistry analysis will be the responsibility of the individual doctor to deliver to St. James’s. All specimens must be left into the Hospital laboratory by 18.00- no later.
2. All other samples can be kept in the surgery (in a refrigerator ) until the following day, when the courier will pick up same.
    

Tests

• A SMAC profile is no longer carried out in the Lab. In future please identify the appropriate organ profile that you require, i.e. Liver, Renal, Bone or Cardiac.
• Each doctor will be provided with an updated Assay booklet.
• A green topped bottle (Heparinised) will be appropriate for most of your biochemistry needs except when carrying out tests for trace elements and lithium, when red top bottles (clotted) are required.
• Pink top bottles are for haematology use only
• Grey top bottles are for glucose levels only.
• Please use the green bottle with plunger for coagulation tests.
• Please ensure that the request form is completed in full. If you use a rubber stamp with your address on it, please ensure that you stamp each page of the request form. Doctors must fill in their code number.
• Specimen bottles must be labelled properly and there should always be a sufficient amount of blood in each container ( 4 mls ), to prevent having to repeat the test.

Test Results

• As part of the courier contract, laboratory results will be delivered to the identified collection point for your area, on a daily basis.
• Urgent blood results will be phoned back. Please ensure that if you are not available, that the Doctor covering for you is prepared to receive this result and act on it.

 Preparation of Medical Specimens for Transport

• In order to comply with EU Legislation governing the Transportation of Dangerous Goods (ADR), plastic containers and external packaging have been purchased to ensure that specimens are transported in a way that minimises risk to man, animal and the environment. Specimens should be placed in the green specimen jar, which should then be placed in the cardboard box. Please note that the courier will no longer be handling green specimen jars directly and will collect jars only when placed in the cardboard box.
• Practices will be provided with an adequate number of boxes to accommodate the number of jars presently collected. Should you require more boxes please contact Andrea on 4545385 or on andreahogan.sicp@mailm.hse.ie . Please note that these boxes are reusable and should not be discarded. Boxes will be returned with the following day’s results.
• Boxes should not be marked with  practice details as boxes returned to you will not be those collected on the previous day.
• Please keep a record of the number of boxes given in each day and ensure that the same number is returned the next day. The driver will also be keeping a record of the number of boxes collected.
• Larger samples e.g. smears will be placed into a larger black box held by the  driver. Please advise him if you have samples that are too large to fit into the cardboard box. He will bring the black box into the practice. A practice staff member will then be required to place any larger samples into the black box.

Audit
This service will be reviewed on an ongoing basis and will participate in SICP evaluations and audits.

Courier Run

Each daily run will commence in the Laboratory in St James Hospital, where test results will be collected and delivered into each collection point while samples are being collected.If there are no results for delivery you must still do a collection

RUN 1

NAMES	ADDRESS	TIME
St James’	Laboratory	11.00
Dr. Doyle	623 Sth. Circular Road         Dublin 8                                     Tel. 4532432	11.15
Dr. Loughrey	15 Grattan Cresent           Inchicore                                Dublin 8                                    Tel. 4734030	11.20
St James’	Laboratory	13.00

RUN 2

NAMES	ADDRESS	TIME
St James’	Laboratory	11.10
Dr. O’Flynn	238 South Circular Road       Dublin 8.                                   Tel. 4541357	11.25
Dr. Hickey	324 Harolds Cross Road Dublin 6 Tel. 4922665	11.30
Dr. Donald	7 Kenilworth Rd                 Rathgar                                  Dublin 6                                    Tel. 4970680	11.50
Dr. O'Shea	2 Upper Rathmines Road         Dublin 6                                    Tel. 4966025	12.00
Dr. Sullivan	150 Rathgar Road                     Dublin 6.                                    Tel. 4977106	12.10
Dr. Bowie	Mageough Lodge                       Cowper Road                    Ranelagh,                               Dublin 6                                    Tel. 4970376	12.20
Dr. Clune ALSO THE COOBE LAB FRIDAY ONLY	3 Charleston Road            Ranelagh                               Dublin 6.                                   Tel. 4975666	12.30
Prof. Bury	Coombe Health Centre             Dolphins Barn                        Dublin 8.                                    Tel. 4730893	12.50
Dr. O’Kelly Dr. O’Doherty	478 South. Circular Rd            Rialto                               D8.                                           Tel. 4532147	13.05
St James’	Laboratory	13.15

NAMES	ADDRESS	TIME
St James’	Laboratory	11.15
Dr. O’Neill ALSO THE COOBE LAB FRIDAY ONLY	52 The Coombe  Dublin8                                      Tel 4543556	11.30
Dr. Burnell	119 South Circular Road       Dublin 8                                    Tel. 4533745	11.45
Dr. F. Brady                    Dr.C.Brady              Dr. Harris   Dr. O’Leary	48 Harrington Street                 Dublin 8.                                   Tel. 4756300	11.50
Dr. O’Reilly Dr. Perdue	Grafton St. Medical Centre         34 Grafton Buildings                Dublin 2.                                   Tel. 6712122	12.30
Dr. Niall O’Cleirigh	79 Pearse St                          Dublin 2                                    Tel. 6777781	12.30 every third Wednesday
Prof. Shannon Dr. McGrogan	Mercers Health Centre      Stephens St. Lower               Dublin 2                                    Tel. 4022300	12.35
Dr. Latham	Liberties Primary Care          Meath Community Unit  Heytesbury St                       Dublin 8                                    Tel. 7085702	12.55
ALSO THE COOBE LAB FRIDAY ONLY
St James’	Laboratory	13.30

All containers and boxes supplied, comply with EU legislation regarding the safe transportation of dangerous goods.

Any problems with the above run you must phone the base on 8425530.