Most samples should be shipped as soon as possible after collection, ideally the same day or the next day. However, we do not recommend sending samples over weekends. If you are not able to do this, you should store samples appropriately before shipping.
Blood samples should be refrigerated before shipping. Note: blood cholinesterase samples should be sent immediately where possible.
Urine samples can generally be frozen prior to shipping. It is generally not necessary to maintain the samples frozen during transit as long as they are received promptly.
As part of the analysis cost, we provide freepost return shipping within the UK. Our experience shows that most samples are received at the laboratory within 3 days of posting (usually next day) and this is within the sample storage criteria for most of our common tests. Where samples are received more than 3 days after posting, a flag will be added to the report. In these cases, you should review the integrity of the samples following the guidelines below:
- where samples have been despatched the same day or next day after collection, and have been received by the laboratory within three days of posting, there should be no integrity issues.
- where samples have been refrigerated or frozen as appropriate prior to shipping and have been received by the laboratory within 3 days of posting, there should be no integrity issues.
- there should be no integrity issues for samples for metals analysis where samples have been received within 14 days of posting.
- samples for TDI must be received in appropriate bottles containing preservative and should be received within 3 days of posting.
Outside of these guidelines, you should consider resampling. Where samples have been posted and not received at the laboratory within 14 days, we will advise that analysis is inappropriate and resampling is recommended.
Informed consent and data protection
Informed consent for biological monitoring is a requirement. That consent must be "informed, freely given" (the worker understands what they are agreeing to and why) and "explicit" (usually a signature). Further information is available in HSE's guidance HSG167. An example consent form is available here. Another example (for isocyanates) is given in COSHH Essentials: General guidance G408. You may want to design your own consent form but it should be based on the principles in HSG167. It’s the duty of the biological monitoring services "requestor" to obtain consent from workers and store those records appropriately.
Biological monitoring results are workers' 'personal' data. They are usually measurement of exposure not health and should be treated as "sensitive personal" data (rather than "medical-in-confidence" according to Data Protection Act criteria). This means that the data have to be stored securely, for sufficient time (generally 40 years) and only shared with people permitted by the worker when giving consent.
In 2018, the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) were introduced. These require a minimisation of the amount of personal data shared with others. In practice this means restricting the data to that which is strictly necessary for fulfilling the service requested. HSE Science and Research Centre now requests anonymised data from customers in respect of this requirement. In order for us to provide the best service to you when interpreting results, we would recommend that you use the same coding for the same worker each time - this way we can check historical data for that worker if you need guidance on results and appropriate subsequent action. We will continue to request birth year (not date of birth), sex and smoking status as these can be relevant to interpretation, but are not personal data when using anonymised coding.
The data is stored indefinitely and maybe used to look at trends in data etc, for example, but only in anonymised formats such that no individual or company is identifiable unless they consent. We have an obligation to inform relevant HSE inspectors when breaches of regulation are suspected, however this is only done as a last resort and we seek to work with our customers in the first instance to reduce exposures where results indicate that this may be necessary.
HSE's privacy policy is also available and there is a specific mention of testing tissue samples (such as blood and urine).
Get in touch
For more information or to make an enquiry about HSE’s testing and monitoring services get in touch on GOV.UK.
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