Inter-State Blood Stock Transfer Records

If a component leaves your centre for another state, you should be able to reconstruct its journey by unit identifier without relying on one person’s memory: who requested it, who approved release, when it left, what transport record travelled with it, and who received it. Schedule F Part XIIB requires blood centres to maintain master records for blood and components, an issue register, and records of components supplied. It does not prescribe a separate inter-state transfer form, so your records must connect those required entries into one retrievable trail.¹

Start with one unit and one connected trail

Rule 122G makes maintenance of the records and registers specified in Schedule F Part XIIB a condition of a blood centre licence. If an inspector asks about a unit, producing only an issue entry is unlikely to answer the full operational question of why it left, how it travelled and whether the receiving centre took custody.²

Build an inter-state movement file around the same unit identifier used in your master record and issue register. The Schedule names the registers you must maintain, while your request, approval, dispatch and acknowledgement records make the movement between centres intelligible.

Make the request and release authority auditable

A request that says only “send two units” leaves too much unexplained. Give it a reference number, identify the requesting and receiving centres, record the component and quantity sought, and preserve the date and the person making the request. If the individual units are selected later, add their identifiers at the point of release.

The approval record should show the authority your centre used to release those units, not a signature added after dispatch. A medical officer reviewing the file should be able to see the request, the approval reference, the selected unit identifiers and the issue entry in sequence. Do not treat a complete paperwork trail as a substitute for any separate permission that may apply to your centre.

Schedule F Part XIIB requires the master records, issue register and records of components supplied, but it does not name a document called an inter-state authorisation. Your SOP should therefore state who may approve an outward transfer and where that approval is recorded, so staff do not improvise when a request is urgent.¹

Separate issue, dispatch and receipt

An issue entry establishes that a component was issued. Dispatch evidence establishes the handover from your centre. The receiving acknowledgement establishes that the named unit reached the receiving centre. Keep all three against the same identifier, rather than filing a carrier sheet by date with no unit reference.

At dispatch, record the date and time, the person handing over the consignment, the person or carrier taking custody, the transport container identifier and the units inside it. The receiving acknowledgement should return to your file with the unit identifier, receipt time and the receiver’s name or signature. If a consignment contains several components, the acknowledgement must still let you account for each unit separately.

Retrieval by unit identifier is the test that matters. The same discipline is central to full traceability from donor to recipient, and it prevents a dispatch sheet from becoming an isolated piece of paper that cannot be tied back to stock.

Keep the cold-chain evidence with the movement file

Where NBTC transportation and cold-chain guidance applies to the transfer, retain the dispatch-to-receipt evidence generated under your transport procedure. This should let you show the container used, the monitoring or condition record your procedure requires, the departure and arrival times, and any handovers during transit.³

Do not recreate a temperature or condition record from memory after the consignment has arrived. If monitoring identifies an excursion or another transport event, preserve the original record and document the action taken under your centre’s SOP. Your cold-chain excursion records should be retrievable with the transfer trail, not stored in a separate file that staff cannot connect to the unit.

File it for retrieval, not just for dispatch day

Section L of Schedule F Part XIIB says that the records it lists must be kept for five years. The provision names no date from which that five-year period runs, so do not apply a last-entry calculation to these blood-centre records.¹

Rule 65(7) uses a two-year period from the date of the last entry for licences to sell, stock or distribute drugs. That provision does not govern blood-centre licence records, which are specifically addressed through Schedule F Part XIIB and Rule 122G.⁴

Keep the request, release approval, dispatch evidence and acknowledgement alongside the corresponding statutory entries for the period your retention process requires. The practical check is simple: choose one previously transferred unit and ask a staff member to retrieve the complete file by unit identifier, without asking the original dispatcher where it was filed. Your blood bank record retention process should make that retrieval routine, while the licence conditions discussed in blood bank licence renewal under Rule 122G are a reminder that the centre remains accountable for maintaining the required registers.

Sources

1. Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945, Schedule F Part XIIB, section L cdsco.gov.in
2. Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945, Rule 122G cdsco.gov.in
3. NBTC guidelines on blood transportation and cold chain no public URL
4. Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945, Rule 65(7) cdsco.gov.in