Austin Pathology provides a 24 hour Blood Bank service to Austin Health, Mercy Hospital for Women and The Northern Hospital for:

• Provision of blood
• Testing

Clinical transfusion advice is available 24 hours from the on-call Haematologist who is contactable via switchboard, and haematology laboratory registrars during business hours on ext 5230. A Transfusion Clinical Nurse Consultant is available on ext/pager 3291.

Austin Health provides a Blood Transfusion Committee (BTC) with representation from surgery, medicine, nursing, clinical governance, hospital executive, nursing & medical education and the Mercy Hospital for Women. The BTC convenes quarterly and its key roles include:

• Manage and oversight activities related to transfusion of blood and blood products at Austin Health and to implement changes to reflect best practice, taking into consideration scientific evidence, ethical and medico legal aspects.
• Review the performance of the Austin Health transfusion service and the blood suppliers; the Victorian branch of the Australian Red Cross Blood Service (ARCBS), Commonwealth Serum Laboratories (CSL) and other agencies, in relation to local requirements. The BTC reports and provides advice to the Executive Safety, Quality and Risk Management Committee.

The Blood Transfusion Working Group (BTWG) has been formed to fast track workings of the BTC. It comprises of a Haematologist, blood bank managers, haematology laboratory Registrars and a transfusion clinical nurse consultant.

All information on this website must be used with reference to Austin Health policies, guidelines and procedures for blood transfusion.

The Austin Health BTC is responsible for this site and welcomes feedback.