I have been a Medical Laboratory Assistant (MLA) at NHS Tayside for 18 months. One of the main roles within my job is dealing with Point of Care (POC) at the Perth Royal Infirmary, the smaller sister laboratory to the larger one based at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee  Although this is not my only role it is by far the one I enjoy the most despite the challenges. My main focus within POC at PRI is to maintain ward and clinic based Ketone meters, glucometers, gas analysers and HbA1c machine. My other main duties include booking in patient samples and analyzing Rapid Covid swabs and therefore I have to utilise my time management to meet both the demand of Point of Care and my other duties.

I am based in the Blood Sciences laboratory building where we have one gas analyser, the other two at PRI are ward based at ITU and CCU. The main hospital, which is a bit of trek especially in the pouring rain or a lovely walk in the sunshine, is not attached to the main laboratory. Sometimes the journey up the hospital requires a bit of a sprint if an analyser needs urgent attention for instance, when a manual shutdown is required at 4.30 pm on a Friday. If this happens, it is usually pouring with rain, there is a back log of patient samples to book in and we are short staffed. At this point I usually hear the Benny Hill song playing in my head!!! 

The wards are busy places and I try to time my visits to maintain the gas analysers so that I do not interrupt wards rounds and cause minimal disruption to my other laboratory duties. One of the main challenges of maintaining the gas analysers is encouraging users to keep the area clean and clear of blood spills, despite detergent wipes being kept right beside the analyser, it would appear that this is hard and difficult task! It would also be good if users remembered to remove the syringes from the analysers. And no I can’t log on for you if you if you do not have your barcode. In this case I always direct them to the generic POC email where they can get a new bar code issued. 

The ketone meters do not really give me much of headache, except when a ward ‘loses’ one. They are usually miraculously found when the cost implication is pointed out to them. The glucometers are usually fairly straight forward, usually a manual reset and a QC sorts them out, it is very rarely that they are “broken” despite the claims of the user. Unless of course the have been dropped and the battery dislodged!! That was a bit of a challenge but I can now partly dismantle a glucometer, check and reposition the battery. Apparently nobody had dropped it!!! My teenage children’s favourite saying comes to mind ‘it wasnae me’. 

Despite the challenges all the staff I encounter are friendly and appreciate the time I take to make sure the POC devices are well maintained, working well and in the case of the gas analysers being well stocked. I get a lot of job satisfaction by problem solving and ultimately feel that I make a positive difference to patient to care by dealing with any problems promptly and efficiently. 

I feel the nurses and doctors appreciate having a familiar face for POC and are happy for me to come and go when necessary as I try to cause the least disruption. I hope POC continues to expand at the PRI site as it makes a real difference to patient care

Louise Neuwirth, NHS Tayside, 2023