Galway GPs told not to refer patients for blood tests

Family doctors in Galway have been told by the laboratory manager at Galway University Hospitals not to refer patients for blood tests on the grounds that they do not provide a phlebotomy service for GPs.

In an email to GPs, lab manager and chief medical scientist Margaret Tarpey said there had been “several circumstances of late whereby patients have been forwarded from GP practices to the outpatients phlebotomy department to specifically have blood drawn for general laboratory tests”.

Ms Tarpey advises that: “The phlebotomy department is solely for patients attending hospital out-patient clinics and of course the patients within the hospital itself.”