Watson-Marlow pumps speed up blood donations

More than 2 million blood donations are made to the National Blood Service each year, through regional transfusion centres in England and Wales. Every blood donation requires a considerable number of tests to be performed before the blood can be used. One of these tests is the determination of haemoglobin content in the red blood cells which involves dispensing small volumes of two specific gravities of copper sulphate solution to which blood samples are then added.

At the South Thames Centre in London, a fast and accurate dispensing system has been found for dispensing the copper sulphate through the use of a Watson-Marlow Bredel 520Di/L dispensing pump.

Clive Goldsmith of South Thames Blood Centre reported "There is no dribbling at the end of a cycle, and the pump has given us faster and more accurate production, with less waste too."

The high flow rates have allowed a multi-channel manifold dispenser to be used to dispense eight of the 20ml doses of copper sulphate at one time, which has cut the time needed to do the test by 1/5, helping to make much needed blood supplies available to patients that much faster.