Guide
Venepuncture step by step: the WHO procedure end to end
7-minute read · Built on WHO Best Practices in Phlebotomy (2010)
A safe venepuncture is a sequence, not a single act. Each step protects something — the patient's identity, the sample's integrity, your own safety — and the order is part of the safety. Here is the WHO procedure, end to end.
Before the needle
Most of the work happens before the skin is broken.
- Identify the patient. Ask them to state their full name and date of birth — active identification — and check it against the request form. A discrepancy stops the procedure until it is resolved.
- Position and prepare. Settle the patient with the arm supported and straight. Lay out the equipment, with the sharps container within arm's reach.
- Find the vein, then apply the tourniquet. Locate a vein first — usually the median cubital vein — then apply the tourniquet four to five finger-widths above the site.
- Clean your hands and the skin. Perform hand hygiene and put on gloves. Clean the site with 70% alcohol — skin antisepsis — from the centre outward, and let it dry. Do not touch it again.
The puncture
Hold the skin taut with your thumb below the site — anchoring the vein so it cannot roll — and insert the needle bevel-up at an angle of thirty degrees or less, in one smooth motion. The flash of blood in the hub confirms you are in the vein. Collect the blood, then release the tourniquet before you withdraw the needle.
After the needle
Place gauze and apply firm pressure as the needle leaves, with the arm kept straight. Drop the needle and holder — or needle and syringe — into the sharps container as a single unit, without recapping. Fill any tubes in the correct order of draw, mix additive tubes by gentle inversion, and label every tube at the patient's side — bedside labelling — checked against the request form before you leave.
This guide is a free extract from PhlebMastery's WHO-based phlebotomy theory course. The full treatment — all twelve bedside steps, with the safety rules and figures — is in Module 6: Step-by-Step Blood Collection. New here? Start with the free Module 1, or see the whole course — full access is a one-time purchase.
Want the full picture? Read Module 6 in the course, or browse the glossary.