Vaccine Porters

Faced with the unusual request to transport frozen donor breast milk urgently, SERV responded positively, but had to quickly set about identifying a suitable transport container for the task. The journey from Gloucester to the John Radcliffe intensive care unit for premature babies would take about 60 minutes, during which time the milk had to be kept frozen.

Given the huge experience that SERV has of moving blood and platelets over the years, we instinctively turned to CliniMed and their range of Blood Porter products. Having carried out independent cold chain validation on the blood boxes, SERV were confident that the CliniMed range would provide a suitable container for the task. We were not disappointed. The porter size was identified as being compatible with the current carrying fixtures on the dedicated motorcycles, and given that its type has already been cold chain validated, we could take the container into immediate service use.

The standard donor milk receptacle is of 130ml capacity and each of the CliniMed boxes could comfortably accommodate 24 bottles with very little excess space around each bottle, which meant that the product was held securely in place and could not roll around.

The icing on the cake was that CliniMed generously donated 4 of these boxes to SERV to allow us to verify the suitability of the product in operational conditions. The box passed the user test with flying colours. SERV is now confident that this we can offer a standard service to the UKAMB charity using the CliniMed product as a key element in the service delivery.

John Stepney

On behalf of SERV