6 October 2026 (Tuesday)- -UKAS Update

Here’s the latest update from the UK Accreditation Service. It’s rather dry and at first sight might well (quite frankly) seem to be meaningless gibberish. I told them this (rather politely) a couple of months ago and they never even replied.

I’ve found that if you copy the entire lot into Chat GPT and ask it to translate into everyday English it becomes a tad more comprehensible. It actually becomes rather sensible.

That’s what winds me up about quality management. It is *such* a good idea but is couched in mystery. Why do people do this with it?

3 October 2026 (Saturday) - IgA Deficiency

The whole reason that we do CPD is to stay abreast of latest developments. And there is no field in which there are no end of developments quite like there is with blood transfusion.

Here’s the latest thinking on IgA deficiency…

 

30 September 2026 (Wednesday) - BTLP-TACT Exercise

As it is the end of the month I thought I might as well do a BTLP-TACT exercise if only to keep the engagement level up.

I had one case – a ninety-two year-old chap needing four units of blood prior to surgery. 

He grouped as O Rh(D) Positive with a negative antibody screen.

I selected four units of O Rh(D) Positive blood

 

I got it right. Having done six exercises this month the software says I’m currently meeting my engagement targets… I wonder why it keeps sending me emails saying that I’m not…

29 September 2026 (Tuesday) - IBMS Newsletter

It was with something of a sense of frustration that I received the IBMS newsletter today. Having received it in four different emails, the works IT refused to open it as it originated from outside its own domain.

I eventually got the thing open – you can read it by clicking here (hopefully). Much of it was irrelevant to me, but two items made me think.

There was an article about embracing automation… This is clearly the way forward, but when I first started people were fighting tooth and nail against automation. There was supposedly some merit by doing everything in the most laborious, time consuming, expensive and imprecise way possible (or so it was ranted at me by so many people).

But I saw red when I read about “Pathology Transformation: Building a sustainable workforce”. This is a standard management catchphrase which has been trotted out ever since we as a profession decided not to build a sustainable workforce but to hope to have a workforce educate and train itself, and then pretended to be surprised when in the large part it didn’t work. (I’ve ranted about this before).

24 September 2026 (Thursday) - BTLP-TACT Exercise

Time for another BTLP-TACT exercise. I was presented with one case – a twenty-eight year-old woman with a ruptured ectopic pregnancy needing six units of blood.
 

She grouped as B Rh(D) Negative with a negative antibody screen.

I selected two units of B Rh(D) Negative and four units of O Rh(D) Negative

 
I got the thumbs-up.

 

23 September 2026 (Wednesday) - Westgard QC Update

The nice people at Westgard QC sent their update today. It was rather heavy going, but that’s the nature of the subject…

 

22 September 2026 (Tuesday) - Transfusion Evidence Library Update

The nice people at the Transfusion Evidence Library sent their update today. Tranexamic acid and keeping platelets in the fridge featured again…

ARTICLE OF THE MONTH

Cold and room-temperature platelets in cardiac surgery: the CHIPS randomized clinical trial.
Spinella, P.C., et al. (2026). JAMA. [Record in progress].
PICO SUMMARY

 

 

TOP ARTICLES

Subcutaneous immunoglobulin for chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy.
Bus, S.R., et al. (2026). The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.

Perioperative albumin versus other fluids to prevent cardiac surgery-associated kidney injury: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials.
Darlison, P.R., et al. (2026). Critical Care Science.

AI and blood banking: predicting transfusion demand - a systematic review of forecasting approaches.
Engelke, M., et al. (2026). Transfusion Medicine and Hemotherapy. [Record in progress].

All-trans retinoic acid plus eltrombopag for refractory/relapsed immune thrombocytopenia.
Fu, H., et al. (2026). NEJM Evidence.

Recombinant human thrombopoietin reduces the need for platelet transfusion in patients with chronic liver disease and thrombocytopenia.
Han, Y., et al. (2026). American Journal of Hematology.

Eltrombopag plus cyclosporine A for moderate aplastic anemia (EMAA): a placebo-controlled, double-blind, phase 3 trial.
Höchsmann, B., et al. (2026). Blood. [Record in progress].

Impact of tranexamic acid on outcomes in early-admitted patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage: a systematic review and bayesian meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.
Łajczak, P., et al. (2026). Journal of Thrombosis and Thrombolysis. [Record in progress].

Intravenous iron to treat anaemia before cardiac surgery (ITACS): international, double blind, placebo controlled randomised trial.
Myles, P.S., et al. (2026). BMJ.

Early red blood cell transfusion strategy in septic shock among patients with cancer: the TRANSPORT randomized controlled trial.
Pène, F., et al. (2026). Intensive Care Medicine. [Record in progress].

Larger versus smaller red blood cell volume per transfusion in hospitalized adults, children and preterm neonates.
Roumeliotis, N., et al. (2026). The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.

Albumin for people with liver cirrhosis and bacterial infections.
Simonetti, R.G., et al. (2026). The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.