minimum storage period
minimum storage period
The amount of time that certain medical items are to be stored by law in the UK.Minimum storage period
• Wet tissues: 4 weeks.
• Request forms: 1 month after release of final report.
• Research records/data: anonymised or destroyed 6 months after final publication of results; may be kept for 10 years to refute allegations of fraud, ≥ 15 years if the data is part of the trial for a new therapy.
• Day books, specimen receipts and logs, EQA records, telephone advice logs: 2 years.
• Histology/cytology slides: 10 years.
• Records—e.g., CPA, IQC, inspections: 10 years.
• Paraffin blocks or material for DNA: Patient’s lifetime or permanently (≥ 30 years).
• Autopsy/histology reports, museum catalogues, patient-related correspondence, SOPs, images used for diagnostic purposes: Permanently.
• No records predating the NHS (1948) or 1660 should be destroyed.