September 2026 - Filing of low Ferritin Levels

It's been brought to our attention that low ferritin levels are likely to have been AutoReviewed if you’ve been using our Haematinics rules. This is because Notts labs are currently using very low ranges for a normal ferritin and adding comments indicating the result is not normal. For example:

This means that a result as low as 5 would appear as “normal” and have been filed by our Autoreview rules, or if you used the “Action Normal Reports” button.

Lots of labs have normal ranges for women that go below 30, but we’ve not come across any others this low. In keeping with NICE guidance (https://cks.nice.org.uk/topics/anaemia-iron-deficiency/background-information/definition/), we’ve amended our rules so they won’t file any Ferritins below 30, irrespective of the normal ranges given by labs.

For Notts practices, we recommend reviewing patients who may have been affected. We’ve built two reports in the pathology folder to support this:

We’ve also created a report output called “WI – Review Ferritin”. This will display the last 3 ferritins, the latest Hb, and the last time the patient was prescribed iron:

We’ve found a service manager at NUH we’re going to flag this to. You may like to consider whether you want to raise it with them yourselves too.

Please let us know if there's anything else we can help with, or if you’re aware of any other results with unusual “normal” ranges from the lab.