From the point of view of a teritiary referral lab, the system that works best for us is to enclose a Freepost sticker in the box. These are then dealt with at the point of unpacking, and put straight back in the post.
Our costs don't currently include the cost of returning packaging, and having to include this would probably be unfair on thse who don't require packaging to be returned. As all our invoicing is done on an individual basis, we could add this cost on in individual cases, but that would require a lot of extra work on our part - eg do we add £8 to every sample to cover packaging costs, even though there may have been 5 samples in one box?
From our point of view, Freepost labels are the way forward!
Regards
David Gerrie
Medical Toxicology Unit
-----Original Message-----
From: Clinical biochemistry discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Angela Mallard
Sent: 13 October 2008 17:06
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Frozen sample transportation
Dear All,
We had the same problem in Truro and our solution was as follows:
- we weighed the boxes and estimated that they would cost about £8 to return (much less than the cost of the box to purchase)
- we then wrote to the referral labs concerned and asked them to add £8 on to the invoice cost and then post the boxes back
Only one lab has refused, asking us to send the money first.
This has worked really well for a number of months.
Angela
>>> Ian Barlow <[log in to unmask]> 13/10/2008 14:33 >>>
Dear colleagues,
Like most other labs we have an on-going problem with transport of frozen samples to reference labs. Notably, that the reference labs rarely send us the insulated carriage boxes back for re-use.
Does anyone know of any disposable (and inexpensive!) containers that might be suitable?
Thanking you in anticipation.
Best wishes
Ian Barlow
Scunthorpe
UK
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