Blood Component Expiry Records and Disposal Trail

Your blood component expiry records should show one continuous trail: your daily review identifies the component, your available-stock status changes, your disposal entry records the final disposition, and your eRaktKosh figure is reconciled where applicable. Keep the same unit and component identifiers throughout, so you can show exactly when the component left available stock and where it went.

If you can retrieve the review entry but your inventory still shows the component as available, the trail has failed at its most important point. If your inventory is correct but you cannot connect the status change to a disposal record, the final disposition remains unexplained.

Put the trail against the component

Schedule F, Part XIIB, section L requires your centre to maintain master records for blood and its components and an issue register, among the records listed there.¹ Section L names these records but does not prescribe a standalone expiry-register form.¹

Build the expiry trail in your controlled inventory record and linked disposal record, using the same unit and component identifiers so a reviewer can retrieve every event together. The storage requirements in Part XIIB sit alongside its record requirements.² Operationally, your physical stock and your recorded stock should tell the same story.

If you create several components from one donation, use the component identifier as well as the parent unit identifier. Your blood component separation record should provide the starting point for that unit-level trail.

Run the daily expiry trail

1. Review available stock

Begin your daily review with the components currently recorded as available. Check each relevant unit and component identifier, component type, expiry date, recorded status and physical location.

Record when your review was completed and who performed it under your centre’s record controls. A tick against a date is difficult to investigate if nobody can identify which stock list was checked or who acted on the result.

If your review finds that a component was already removed because of a temperature event or recall, preserve that original reason. Do not relabel a cold-chain excursion or a blood unit recall as expiry merely because the expiry date has since passed.

2. Flag the expiring component

Your centre may use an advance flag to help your next shift find a component approaching expiry. That flag is a pending action, not evidence that the component has left your available balance.

Keep your flag against the same identifiers used in the master and inventory records. If you maintain a separate review sheet, make sure it points back to the controlled component record instead of creating a second, abbreviated identity.

3. Remove it from available stock

When the component reaches expiry, enter a status event that removes it from available stock. Record the unit and component identifiers, the expiry reason, the date and time of the change, and the person or user account that made it.

Then check your available-stock list again. The component should no longer appear as available, and your balance should reflect the removal.

A common failure is a completed expiry sheet beside an unchanged inventory screen. The technician moved the component on the shelf, but the next shift still sees it as available. Similar gaps appear in other blood inventory management mistakes.

4. Record final disposal

If your centre completes final disposal after removing the component from availability, retain both events. The first tells you when the component stopped appearing in available stock. The second tells you how the trail ended.

At disposal, enter the same unit and component identifiers, the disposal date, the reason and the controlled disposal-record reference. Record the responsible staff entry according to your centre’s procedure.

A batch disposal entry that shows only a component total is insufficient for unit-level retrieval unless its supporting record identifies every component included. You should be able to move from one expired component to the relevant disposal entry without searching by date and guessing which batch contained it.

5. Reconcile eRaktKosh reporting

Where applicable, compare your centre’s available balance after the expiry removal with the stock reported through eRaktKosh, the national portal blood centres report into.³ A correct local status does not explain an unchanged reported balance.

Because the official portal carries blood-availability information, an expired component left in the reported balance creates a visible reconciliation gap.³ Record the reporting or correction reference needed to explain how your local stock and reported stock were brought back into agreement.

Your eRaktKosh stock reconciliation should start from the post-expiry local balance. Do not use the portal update as a substitute for the local status event or disposal record.

What you should retrieve for one component

When an assessor selects one expired component, you should be able to retrieve the following without reconstructing the sequence from loose pages:

• The parent unit identifier and the individual component identifier.
• The component type and recorded expiry date.
• The daily review entry that identified the component.
• Any advance expiry flag used by your centre.
• The status before and after removal from available stock.
• The date, time and reason for that status change.
• The person or user account responsible for the change.
• The final disposal date and linked disposal-record reference.
• The eRaktKosh reconciliation reference, where reporting applies.

Each item should point to the next through the same identifiers. If your disposal register uses one reference and your inventory uses another, preserve the link between them inside the controlled record.

Four gaps that break the disposal trail

The review was recorded, but availability was unchanged

Your technician identified the component correctly and moved it physically. Nobody changed its inventory status, so it remained visible to the next shift. Check both the review entry and the available-stock result.

The status changed without a reason

Your inventory shows that the component became unavailable, but the event does not say whether it expired, was recalled or was removed after an excursion. Without the reason, you cannot connect it confidently to the right supporting record.

The disposal entry cannot identify the component

Your disposal record contains a date and total, but no unit-level attachment or reference. An assessor can see that something was disposed of, but you cannot show that the selected component was included.

The local record and eRaktKosh figure differ

Your centre record correctly removes the component, while the reported stock remains unchanged. Retain the reconciliation action instead of silently overwriting one figure and leaving no explanation for the difference.

Retain the connected records and test retrieval

Schedule F, Part XIIB, section L says that the records listed there must be kept for five years; it does not name a start date.¹ If your archive uses a last-entry calculation, correct that assumption against the blood bank record retention requirement.

On your next stock review, select one component that has already expired and try to retrieve its full trail. Find the review entry, confirm that it no longer appears in available stock, open the status event, retrieve the disposal reference and compare the resulting balance with eRaktKosh where applicable.

If any step depends on a staff member remembering what happened, your record is incomplete. Fix the link while the supporting pages and system entries are still easy to find.

Sources

1. Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945, Schedule F, Part XIIB, section L cdsco.gov.in
2. Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945, Schedule F, Part XIIB storage requirements cdsco.gov.in
3. eRaktKosh official portal eraktkosh.mohfw.gov.in