Posted: March 21st, 2016

Describe the procedural steps of a specimen through your laboratory, taking into account health and safety issues, equipment used, methodologies, reagent preparation, prioritisation, quality control, result interpretation and generation and possible sources of error, sample storage and disposa

COMPETENCE
You must be able to:
a) Perform laboratory procedures and diagnostic tests in accordance with standard operating procedures and understand the health and safety requirements with respect to:
o Patient identification
o Sample type o Protective clothing
o Hazard data sheets (including COSHH)
o Equipment
b) Describe the correct procedure for handling samples that may contain hazard group 2, 3 and 4 pathogens. c) Use the following equipment correctly and safely: o Balance
o Centrifuge
o Hand-held pipette
o Fridges and freezers
o Pressurised gas storage containers
d) Describe the principles and practice of standardisation and calibration and perform these procedures in accordance with standard operating procedures. e) Explain the terms ‘specificity’, ‘sensitivity’ and ‘linearity’.
f) Explain the significance of reference ranges and reference materials. g) Use the correct scientific units and be able to interconvert units.
h) Prepare buffers and other solutions in accordance with standard operating procedures.
i) Demonstrate practical skills in instrumentation and techniques relevant to your discipline:
o Microscopy o Spectroscopy
o Centrifugation
o Electrophoretic techniques, including immunoelectrophoresis and blotting o Chromatography o Electroanalytical techniques’
o Automated analysis: continuous flow, multi-channel, discrete, selective, random access, centrifugal, kinetic end-point o Enzyme assays
o Molecular biology techniques
o Sterilisation techniques and microbial culture o Identification and quantitation of microorganism’s o Tissue preparation for microscopy
j) Confirm that samples have been correctly identified and prepared for intended tests.
k) Confirm that samples have been stored correctly and can be retrieved for laboratory investigation if required. l) Produce results consistent with the laboratory procedure.
m) Perform calibration and quality control checks.
n) Correct simple faults in equipment. o) Describe common causes of non-analytical errors and the implications of these for the test result.
p) Describe near-patient testing and non-invasive techniques employed by a pathology laboratory, and other settings such as primary care, for routine diagnosis and monitoring.

Suggested training tasks and examples of evidence: Those QUESTIONS needs to be answered. Describe the procedural steps of a specimen through your laboratory, taking into account health and safety issues, equipment used, methodologies, reagent preparation, prioritisation, quality control, result interpretation and generation and possible sources of error, sample storage and disposal.
What do you understand by near-patient testing and non-invasive techniques and give an example?
CRITICAL APPRAISES
In this part also answer Bold Questions / KNOWLEDGE.