Occasional problems can occur with blood glucose meters This guide shows which problems need to be reported.

When reporting a problem with your blood glucose meter, contact the manufacturer as soon as you are able.

Blood glucose meter manufacturers have a legal responsibility to follow any reports of problems with their glucometers.

Which problems should be reported?

The following problems are example which should be reported to the blood glucose meter’s manufacturer.

  • Display problems
  • Performance problems
  • Inadequate labelling or instructions
  • Manufacturing problems

Display issues such as failure to display part or all of a result. If failure to display is the result of damage, for example being trodden o, your meter manufacturer may be able to help replace your meter.

Performance problems include falsely high or low results or incorrect calibration. These errors could be related to the meter or the test strips.

The meter company will be able to help discover which. Some blood glucose meters require a calibration code to be entered which can lead to mistakes and errors.

A number of meters these days feature no coding technology to reduce mistakes occurring.

Blood glucose meters should come with intelligible user guides to help you to use your meter correctly. If the meter comes without the user guide, or the wrong user guide, this should be reported.

Problems arising from faulty manufacture might include failure to switch on or switching to displaying the wrong units.

Meter error codes

Error codes may typically appear for reasons including:

  • Blood test sample smeared or not large enough
  • Test strip incorrectly inserted
  • Wrong test strip used
  • Temperature of the strip is too warm or cold

Meter error codes should need to be reported as such. However, if they are persistent or seem to be wrong or invalid, this will need to be reported to manufacturer.

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