How to reduce blood unit wastage from expiry: 9 practical steps for blood centres

Every expired unit represents a donor's time and goodwill, the cost of collection and testing, and blood that a patient somewhere could have used. Some wastage is unavoidable, but in most blood centres a large part of it is not. It comes from units nobody noticed, stock held in the wrong place, or collection that didn't match demand.

Here are nine practical steps that reduce expiry wastage. None of them need a large budget; most need better information, available at the right moment.

Start by measuring it properly

You cannot reduce what you do not measure. Track expired units every month, broken down by:

• Component: red cells, platelets, plasma and cryo behave very differently.
• Blood group: wastage often concentrates in a few groups.
• Reason: expired, reactive, damaged, returned too late, and so on.

Express it as a percentage of units prepared, so months with different collection volumes can be compared. Once you can see where wastage actually comes from, the steps below become much easier to prioritise.

1. Make stock visible at a glance

Units expire when nobody knows they are there. A single view of stock by group and component, split into available, reserved and under testing, means staff can make decisions without opening refrigerators or flicking through registers.

2. Issue first-expiry-first-out, every time

The unit that expires soonest should always be the next one issued, as long as it is suitable for the patient. On paper this depends on staff remembering to check dates. It works far better when the system suggests the right unit at the point of issue.

3. Watch a short-horizon expiry list daily

Review a list of units expiring in the next 48 to 72 hours at the start of every shift. This gives the team time to act: prioritise those units, or offer them to hospitals that may need them.

4. Pay special attention to platelets

Platelets have the shortest shelf life of any component, typically around five days, so they account for a large share of wastage in many centres. Useful measures include:

• Preparing platelets based on expected demand rather than routinely from every donation.
• Agreeing a daily check-in with your main hospital users about planned procedures.
• Tracking platelet wastage separately from other components.

5. Match collection to demand

Large camps are valuable, but a camp that brings in far more units than the centre can use in the following weeks leads to expiry later. Look at the last year's issue data by month and group, and plan camps so that collection follows the pattern of demand, including known seasonal peaks and dips.

6. Release reservations that are not used

Units reserved for a patient after cross-matching are unavailable to anyone else. If a reservation is not used or released promptly, the unit may reach expiry sitting on the "reserved" shelf. Set a clear rule for how long a reservation is held, and review open reservations daily.

7. Control returns

Units issued to wards or outside hospitals sometimes come back unused. A returned unit can only go back to stock if it was stored correctly and returned within the allowed time. Record each return with its time and condition, so usable units re-enter stock quickly and unusable ones are discarded with the right reason.

8. Share information with nearby centres and hospitals

A unit that is about to expire in one centre may be exactly what another hospital needs today. Regular communication with nearby centres and hospitals, and keeping availability up to date on portals such as e-RaktKosh where required, gives near-expiry units a better chance of being used.

9. Review wastage every month

Put a short monthly review in the calendar. Look at wastage by component, group and reason, compare with the previous months, and agree one or two actions. Over a year, small changes add up to a noticeable drop.

A simple monthly wastage report

Where software helps

Most of these steps depend on seeing the right information at the right time: stock at a glance, expiry lists, FEFO suggestions, open reservations and monthly trends. In a paper system, each of these takes someone's time to compile. In a good blood bank management system, they are simply there.

HaemoCode shows live stock by group and component, highlights units close to expiry, suggests the soonest-expiring suitable unit at issue, tracks reservations and returns, and produces wastage reports by component, group and reason. See also our guide to the features every blood centre needs.

If you would like to see your own stock picture in HaemoCode, book a free demo.