Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to prevent serum Clozapine blood samples from being lost in transit within the NHS.

No specific assessment has been made of the reliability of current systems for transporting and processing serum Clozapine blood samples across National Health Service providers. Operational responsibility for the collection, transport, and processing of clozapine blood samples lies with individual NHS providers and their commissioned pathology and courier services. Further information on sample type and transport stability is available via individual NHS trust laboratory webpages.

Testing for clozapine levels is carried out within the same accredited pathology framework used for other biochemical assays, with defined requirements for sample collection, labelling, storage and transport to maintain sample integrity. Laboratories providing clozapine assays hold UKAS ISO 15189 accreditation and are required to undertake internal quality control and participate in national External Quality Assessment schemes to ensure accuracy and reproducibility of results.

Samples are transported through contracted courier services operating temperature controlled logistics, chain of custody processes and turnaround time requirements. These arrangements form part of routine clinical governance, incident reporting and performance management across NHS pathology services to prevent sample loss and provide assurance on the reliability of testing. Detailed operational arrangements are managed locally by individual pathology providers.