Events during September 2023

Expanding your role into Point-of-Care Testing – a career opportunity to consider

This session is aimed at staff who are on the front line of Pathology services. Those who are in sample reception, taking calls and frequently being the interface between Pathology and our users.

Human beings are built to size each other up quickly. These first impressions are influenced by a number of factors, such as facial shape, vocal inflection, attractiveness, and general emotional state. People tend to get attached to their initial impressions of others and find it very difficult to change their opinion, even when presented with lots of evidence to the contrary.

As a result, it’s important to be aware of how we come across to others during a first meeting. Then we can employ impression management skills—modulating any irritating traits and accentuating one's strengths—to ensure that people have a more favourable opinion of one. Everything from clothing style and posture to conversational topics can be adjusted to form a better first impression.

It takes a mere seven seconds to make a first impression. People thin-slice others based on how a person looks and sounds, more so than their explicit verbal statements. Often, someone's first impression is influenced by implicit attitudes of which they are unaware, which explains impulsive actions like giving special preference to those with physical beauty or more easily trusting a person who has a babyface. The observational powers (biases) of the observer are just as important as the qualities projected by the target, or person being judged, making these judgments a constant dance between objective information and selective signal-reading

This presentation will create awareness of our own and others first impressions and allow us consider how to make a good and lasting first impression.

There is a tendency to promote staff into supervisory roles and then allow them to find their feet on their own as the are faced with managing staff and taking on more responsibility. Departments tend to be very good and training these supervisors on how to perform tasks such as rotas, overtime payments, etc. but assume they have the necessary skills to mage and lead staff.

Often these supervisors look to role models from managers they have worked with or for and Tv (the apprentice, shudder) to help them developed their interpersonal skills. Sonic healthcare UK has recognized this as an opportunity to help with the development of all grades and has a novel training program to aid in supporting management and leadership skills. This will be discussed in this lecture.

A role with a difference – anatomical pathology technologist in a mortuary

This presentation will:

Summarise the key points within the BSH guideines for blood grouping and antibody testing in pregnancy
Give an overview of the main updates to the BSH guideline for blood grouping and antibody testing in pregnancy

What’s in the new precompatibility guidelines?

Highlights from the 2022 Annual SHOT Report: lessons learnt and learning from excellence

Reporting haemovigilance incidents is vital to the ongoing learning from errors and improvements of quality management systems in transfusion. It is a statutory reguirement of the Blood Safety and Quality Regulations (2005) (as amended) and the data collected is used by both MHRA and SHOT to analyse and demonstrate key learning opportunities.

This presentation will give an overview of the legal requirements of the BSQR and the Good Practice Guide. Common isnspection findings will be presented and practical learning from SABRE reports will be shown. Common issues associated from reports received will be discussed and tips given as to how to improve the reporting of haemovigilance data.

An overview of the UKTLC collaborators and history of the UKTLC. An introduction to the new standards and the evidence supporting these and the findings of the 2022 UKTLC survey.

This session provides an overview of the key changes to the ISO 15189 standard and explains the UKAS transition process including deadlines and actions to be taken by accredited organisations.

The same session is being run on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday to ensure as many delegates as possible are able to attend.