Research from the Royal College of Pathologists suggests that hospital labs typically run over 1 billion tests per year - an equivalent of 14 tests per person in England and Wales. This figure will have grown exponentially with the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, placing huge pressure on pathology teams to ramp up testing capacity.
Even before the pandemic, demand across virtually all disciplines of pathology has been rising at an average of 10% p.a. with pathology services costing the NHS around £2.5billion each year.
We rely on pathology tests like blood tests or biopsies to investigate, diagnose, treat and prevent infections, allergies, chronic illnesses, and countless other medical conditions. And so for pathology leaders considering the equipment needed in their labs, faced with increasing demand and fragmented services, focus rests on:
- Quality: The requirement to reduce variability in results and adopt national quality standards, helping to improve patient safety
- Safety: For the Laboratory Technicians handling potentially dangerous pathogens and chemicals
- Efficiency: Solutions that improve productivity per Technician and allow results to be delivered even more quickly
- Cost: Where budgets are controlled by NHS Trusts, solutions with low up-front capital expenditure and low ongoing servicing and maintenance deliver better value
