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# Kirkhollow Analytical Laboratories Ltd

Sample Reception and Handling

Procedure KAL-SP-06 · Revision 4 · Effective 1 March 2026

## Scope

This procedure covers the receipt, identification, storage and disposal of samples submitted to the laboratory for chemical analysis. It applies to everything received at the Braithe Road reception, including samples delivered by courier and samples brought in by clients. It does not cover samples taken by our own field staff, which are dealt with in KAL-SP-11.

## Reception

Samples are received at reception between 08:00 and 17:30 on weekdays and between 09:00 and 12:00 on Saturdays. Outside those hours clients who hold a key may use the refrigerated drop box at the rear entrance.

## Chain of custody

Every delivery arrives with a completed submission form. Reception staff check that the form is signed, that the number of containers matches the number listed on it, and that each container carries a legible client reference. The form is signed and timed on receipt and the top copy is returned to the person making the delivery.

## Condition on arrival

Reception staff record the condition of each container on the submission form before it leaves the reception bench. Anything recorded there that falls outside the limits below goes to the duty chemist before the sample is booked in.

## Temperature

Chilled samples. Where the submission form specifies chilled transport, the temperature of the transport box is measured and written on the form. A box above 8 degrees is accepted, marked, and referred to the duty chemist, who decides whether the analysis can still be reported. A box above 15 degrees is not accepted for microbiological work at all.

## Container integrity

Containers that are cracked, leaking, or filled above the shoulder are photographed on the reception bench and set aside, and the client is telephoned the same day. A leaking container is not opened at reception.

## Storage

## Refrigerated storage

Samples for chemical analysis are held at 4 degrees in the reception cold room and are racked by the day of receipt, not by client. Racks are cleared every Friday afternoon.

## Frozen storage

Samples that require frozen storage are held at minus 20 degrees in the chest freezer in room 4. Nothing goes into the freezer without a completed freezer label, and nothing is stacked above the load line marked inside the cabinet.

## Retention and disposal

Analysed samples are kept for twenty-eight days after the report is issued and are then disposed of by the route set out in KAL-SP-19. Samples held longer at a client's request are labelled with the agreed retention date and reviewed monthly by the laboratory manager.

## Records

Submission forms, condition records and the reception log are kept for six years. The reception log is a bound book: entries are not erased, and a correction is made by a single line through the original, initialled and dated.

## Responsibilities

The laboratory manager owns this procedure. Reception staff carry it out; the duty chemist decides anything it refers to them; and the quality manager audits it twice a year against the reception log and the submission forms.

## Reception staff

Reception staff check every delivery against its form, record the condition of each container, book the submission in, and put the samples into the right storage within thirty minutes of accepting them. They do not decide whether a sample outside the limits above can be analysed, and they are not asked to.

## The duty chemist

The duty chemist is named on the board in reception for each working day. They decide whether a sample that arrived outside the limits can be reported and on what terms, record the decision on the submission form and initial it, and tell the client where the decision changes what the report will say.

## Identification and booking in

## The laboratory number

Numbers run in one sequence for the whole laboratory and are never reused, including where a submission is rejected after being numbered. The number and the year are written on the container as well as on the form, because a container that has lost its label is a container nobody can report.

## Splitting a submission

Where determinations on one sample must be done in different sections, the sample is split at reception and each part carries the laboratory number with a suffix. The split is recorded on the form with the volume in each part.

## Sub-samples for microbiology

A sub-sample for microbiological work is taken first, before any other part is poured, and is taken in the reception cabinet rather than on the open bench. Where the volume received is too small to allow that, the microbiological determinations are refused rather than taken second.

## Storage capacity

The reception cold room holds forty racks and the freezer sixty labelled boxes. Where either is full, reception tells the duty chemist before accepting anything further into it. A sample put into the wrong storage is worse than a sample refused: the refusal is visible and the wrong storage is not.

## Weekly clearance

Racks are cleared every Friday afternoon against the booking-in record. A sample still in the cold room after its retention date is disposed of by the route in KAL-SP-19 and the disposal is logged. A sample in the cold room with no record at all is not disposed of: it goes to the duty chemist, because an unrecorded sample is a failure somewhere earlier in this procedure.

## Transport boxes and returns

Transport boxes belonging to the laboratory are emptied, wiped and returned on the next round to the client they came from. Boxes belonging to a client are emptied and returned unwashed unless the client asks otherwise. Ice packs are refrozen and reused; a leaking ice pack is thrown away rather than refrozen.

## Out-of-hours deliveries

The refrigerated drop box is checked at 08:00 every weekday and at 09:00 on Saturdays. Anything in it is booked in as arriving at the time of the check and not at the time it was left, and clients are told that is the practice when a key is issued. The box is not checked on Sundays or public holidays, and clients are asked not to use it on the day before one.

## Deviations

A deviation from this procedure is recorded on the submission form and in the reception log, with the reason and the name of whoever authorised it. Deviations are reviewed monthly by the laboratory manager and again at each audit. A deviation that has happened three times is a sign that the procedure is wrong rather than the staff, and is raised as such.

## Complaints

A client complaint about the condition or the handling of a sample goes to the laboratory manager on the day it is received and is acknowledged within one working day. The reception log, the submission form and the condition record are copied into the complaint file before anything else is done, because they are the only evidence of what arrived.

## Training

Nobody works reception unsupervised until they have been through this procedure with the laboratory manager, worked two full days alongside someone who has, and had their first ten submissions checked. Training is recorded on the individual's file, and the record says who signed each stage off.

## Revision history

Revision 4 adds the drop box and the fifteen-degree limit for microbiological work, and moves the retention period from twenty-one days to twenty-eight. Revision 3 followed the 2024 audit and rewrote the condition records. Revisions 1 and 2 are held in the controlled document file and are not in circulation.