Roles and training

Persönliche Schutzausrüstung

In one sentence

Persönliche Schutzausrüstung is the protective equipment a pharmacy provides for a blood draw, chiefly single use gloves, a dedicated gown and hand disinfectant. The employer supplies it, pays for it and has to make sure it is actually worn.

Persönliche Schutzausrüstung, usually shortened to PSA, is the equipment between the person drawing blood and the blood itself. For a pharmacy the list is short and unglamorous:

  • Single use examination gloves are needed in the sizes the team actually wears.
  • A gown or a coat is kept for this activity alone.
  • Hand disinfectant belongs within reach of the chair.
  • A puncture resistant container takes the used Kanüle.
  • Eye protection belongs in the risk assessment rather than in the routine tray, because a pharmacy draw rarely produces splashing.

The equipment is the employer's obligation rather than the employee's. German occupational safety law requires the employer to select suitable protective equipment, to provide it and to carry the cost, and that cost may never be passed on to staff. The Biostoffverordnung approaches the same duty from the other side, since blood counts as a biological agent and the pharmacy owes a written Gefährdungsbeurteilung and a Betriebsanweisung that follows from it.

Providing the material is only half of the duty. The employer also has to instruct the team before the first draw and at intervals afterwards, and then enforce use, which in practice means noticing when gloves get skipped on a busy afternoon and saying so.

Gloves are the part that goes wrong most often. A fresh pair goes on for each customer and comes off before anything else in the pharmacy is touched, including the till, the telephone and the drawer handles. Gloves are not disinfected and reused, and they do not replace hand disinfection, which happens before they go on and again after they come off. That sequence is the core of Hygiene bei der Blutentnahme, and it survives a real working day only if the materials are where the hand expects them.

The unit to stock is therefore the station rather than the room. Everything needed for one draw is laid out before the customer takes the chair, including the tubes in the order they will be filled. The Abwurfbehälter is close enough that the used Kanüle is not carried across the room. Recapping is the classic route to a Nadelstichverletzung, and a safety cannula only protects anyone if the mechanism is triggered at once. A venöse Blutentnahme brings more contact with blood than a capillary one, so the gown and the disposal route matter more there, though the glove rule itself does not change with the method.

This glossary entry is general information about German pharmacy law and practice. It is not legal advice. For binding guidance on your own pharmacy, contact your Landesapothekerkammer.

Go deeper
Read who may draw blood in a pharmacy
Read the guide
Diagnostics in your pharmacy
Aniva supplies the laboratory network, the test kits, the shipping and the data protection paperwork. Your pharmacy offers the venöse Blutentnahme and pharmazeutische Dienstleistungen under its own name. Core panel results are usually in the app within 10 days, while a few add-on panels take longer.
Book a demo
Go deeper

See what diagnostics would look like in your pharmacy