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"Phlebotomy - where are my blood test results?"

About: Bristol Royal Infirmary

I walked in to the phlebotomy department in the hope of getting my blood tested sooner as my GP practice was unable to move the original test date forward. I thought seeing as though my sample would not need to be transported from the GP practice to the hospital that meant I would know my results much sooner. The nurse also had some trouble logging in to the network and so my blood test instead of it being 8:30am it became 8:50am. I need my blood to be taken first thing in the morning as that is when my levels are at their highest. There were also other patients in the practice room whilst my blood was still being taken which I thought was very disrespectful and rude. I went to my GP practice today to be told that the BRI has not put any notes on the system to say that I attended on Monday and my blood test results have not come back. My thyroid function, ferritin and folate have always been abnormal and usually if these are abnormal I hear back within a day. I have dark circles under my eyes and I know that's either ferritin being low or my thyroid becoming underactive again. Why are my results taking so long to come back? It's a disgrace considering I made the effort of coming in as early as I could to get the blood taken and the fact that my sample does not have to be transported from one end of Bristol to the other I thought would meant I would know the results sooner. I would like to know what they are so that I can treat my symptoms please. I will not be using this service again.

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Responses

Response from Bristol Royal Infirmary 9 years ago
Bristol Royal Infirmary
Submitted on 26/11/2014 at 10:45
Published on nhs.uk on 27/11/2014 at 03:00


Thank you for your feedback - we have also responded to your post on 1/10/2014. We are sorry that you didn't have a good experience at the clinic. We are going to review the way that we run the clinic in response to the points you raise, particularly about the time taken to log on to computers etc. There are two chairs in the clinic room for patients to have their blood taken - this is to help maximise the efficiency of what is a very busy clinic. However, we have reminded staff that the curtain between the bays should always be drawn if more than one patient is in attendance. We have spoken to the Pathology Lab who advise that blood test results are usually available for GPs to view the same day or the next. It is unclear why this didn't happen in your case, but we think from your other posting that you may have changed GP practices around this time, and it may be that your former GP hadn't updated the system to say that your blood results should be sent to a different practice. However, we appreciate that this is speculation on our part at the moment, and we would very much like to investigate this properly. Please can you contact our Patient Support and Complaints Team on 0117 342 3604 so that we can do this. Thank you again for taking the time to post a comment on NHS Choices and we hope to hear from you soon.

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