He jokes about sharing a name with a screen star famous for sucking the life out of his victims but Christopher Lee and his team in haematology are part of the unseen lifeblood that keeps the hospital alive.The biomedical scientist at University Hospital of Wales Department of Haematology has worked there since it opened and has seen the role played by the department, and the role technology has played, grow over forty years.
Advances mean that the services of him and his team are in demand like never before, with blood holding the key to many patients’ treatment.
They process around 1,600 samples every day in their anonymous lab on at? UHW – but Chris says his team plays an often overlooked, yet vital role, in saving lives.
He said: “Over the last 40 years our workload has more than quadrupled, which has thrown up many challenges, especially since many oncology patients, and others, are treated on an outpatient basis, and require a blood analysis prior to their treatment, which has required us to have a rapid turnaround time.
“However, I am bound to say that it is a privilege and a joy to be involved in the healthcare team and at present I am involved with training the next generation of biomedical scientists and medical students.”
Chris is well placed to help shape the minds of the future. He joined the Pathology Department on September 13th 1971, coming from a family familiar with hospitals – his father was an electrician at Cardiff Royal Infirmary notching up 44 years of service.
Now with 40 years under his belt himself Chris has seen first hand the impact of technology on health care.
He said: “When I first joined the laboratory service, we were still using, for some purposes, counting chambers where we diluted whole blood in a special solution, and actually counted the blood cells by eye, using a microscope and a tally counter. In fact we diluted the blood using special pipettes and rubber tubes, which we sucked with our mouth.
“During the last 40 years, there have been many major advancements and changes, there are still technologies in current, daily use, that are still recognisable today. A particular example is microscopy, where there certainly have been major improvements in optics but the design is fundamentally the same.
“Microscopy is a discipline in which I am still very much involved and still spend a large amount of my day helping to diagnose blood diseases, by looking at the changes in blood cells.”
Technology has always played an important role in the work of UHW and Chris remembers how the team were keen to show the Duke of Edinburgh their newest piece of kit when the Queen opened the hospital on November 19th 1971.
However he said that Prince Phillip was ‘pretty underwhelmed, as he had already seen such an instrument in a hospital in Luton , the week before’.
Today’s equipment is even more advanced, vastly improving accuracy and turnaround times.
Chris said that some processes could take up to three weeks to do in the past, but advances now meant many could be done within two hours.
He said: “I well remember cross matching blood at 3.00am when it would take 2 hours, and nowadays, using our sophisticated analysers employing capture technology we are able to provide compatible blood in 10 minutes or so. “
For all the advances in technology and the benefits it brings, it is Chris and his team that are the really exceptional part of the service.
Chris says people are the most important part of all the work the team do. He said: “I used to spend some time taking blood from patients, which, I have to say, I do very little of these days, and it is something which I miss, as I did find meeting people very rewarding.
