Chapter 13: Diagnostic tests
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Clinical governance
Competencies
Blood cultures should be collected by practitioners who have been trained in the collection procedure and whose competence has been assessed (DH 2010). Practitioners must be competent and feel confident that they have the knowledge, skill and understanding to undertake blood culture sampling for microbiological analysis (NMC [165]).
Risk management
Contamination of a blood sample can lead to false‐positive results, which may in turn lead to inappropriate antibiotic therapy. This also has cost and resource implications (PHE [188]). Contamination can be avoided by correctly decontaminating the patient's skin, ensuring adequate hand hygiene and decontaminating the bottle tops prior to obtaining a sample (Aziz [9]).
False‐negative culture results can occur due to inadequate sample volumes, resulting in incorrect blood‐to‐media ratios and the administration of antimicrobials prior to taking the samples. False negatives result in present bacteria going undetected and therefore potentially being missed or untreated, which has clear consequences for the patient (PHE [188]).
