Group and save?

by **ems101** » Sat Feb 15, 2014 7:12 pm

@clothmama @docmaggoo and any other hps

I got a letter todayvto say my gtt was fine but scribbled on was my blood test results and a pathology for for a repeat. It says no group. Repeat in path. Group and save.

What does this mean??? Why would they send me such a criptic letter?!

by **clarabel3** » Sat Feb 15, 2014 7:31 pm

hi, I would interpret that it means that they don't have a record of your blood group, so you will need a repeat test to determine what blood group you are. a group and save is a test for blood 'group' but where they 'save' the sample for future reference, it can be so they have a sample of your blood available to match to blood for a transfusion for example. strange way to ask you to come for a further sample though! perhaps your midwife can give you more info?

by **ems101** » Sat Feb 15, 2014 7:42 pm

This is what I gathered from googling it! However, the form has my blood group on it....

by **docmaggoo** » Sat Feb 15, 2014 9:56 pm

A 'group and save' means the lab test your blood to determine which group you are but also for any special antibodies (which is relevant if you have had a previous transfusion)

They also 'save a sample' in case they need to do a full cross match to give you a blood transfusion.
However the "save" part is only valid for 7 days after is is taken.
(As a precaution in case you've had a transfusion in the meantime - if it's at the same hospital they will know if you have or haven't)
But you could have been to another hospital and had another one in the meantime.

Also most trusts have no introduced a "2 first sample" rule. If you have NEVER had a group and save sample done at that hospital - they will require 2 samples to be taken before they will dispense any blood.
This means either 2 samples taken by different people!

So in what we end up doing is taking 2 in advance so that if there is an emergency - we don't have to wait around for the 2nd sample to be taken.

This is all to prevent the wrong blood being given and transfusion reactions. Which can be fatal.

by **ems101** » Sat Feb 15, 2014 10:00 pm

Ok thanks jen. I lost quite a lot of blood with james so had a transfusion. Maybe this is why they want it.
It doesnt even say clearly please go for another blood test. I think thats pretty poor practice to just scribble some jargon and not explain what or why I need to do something!at first glance I thought they wanted yo repeat the gtt test