Royal Oldham’s haematinics service: three years, a million results, one analyser

The need to improve productivity to handle increasing workloads was one of the drivers behind amalgamating the hospital services in Bury, Oldham, Rochdale and north Manchester. The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust was formed in 2007, serving a catchment area of 800,000 residents north east of Manchester. It implemented a multimillion-pound restructuring programme to improve efficiency and service delivery. Part of the redevelopment programme included a new three-storey laboratory wing, which was constructed around the old laboratory. Within the new building, blood sciences was brought together into one department to facilitate 24-hour working.

All folate, ferritin and B12 test requests from four hospitals and external customers are now analysed in the Royal Oldham laboratory, which runs approximately 1800 tests daily. Around 600 samples come into the haematinics section each day, with 60% of test requests coming from GPs and other external customers, and a further 40% from within the four hospitals.

A beast of an analyser
As Dave Sprowell, the haematology technical manager at the Royal Oldham, explains: “We work collaboratively with the three other hospitals in our trust to provide a fast and efficient service for all folate, ferritin and B12 test requests. Our aim is to return 90% of results to GPs within the day, and all within 24 hours. In most cases, we comfortably exceed our own targets.