Support for the UK’s fastest service redesign to deliver modernisation efficiencies

Recognising that the traditional model of standalone pathology services was not sustainable clinically or financially, in February 2013 Croydon Health Services NHS Trust, Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust agreed to form a pathology partnership. In line with the pathology modernisation recommendations of the recent Carter reports,^1,2 the aim of the partnership was to consolidate and bring together the best of each trust’s current pathology services and provide them in a coordinated and streamlined way. In so doing, they could deliver a single, integrated, high-quality, NHS-led pathology service to hospitals and GPs across south-west London. Named South West London Pathology (SWLP), the new partnership was officially established on 1 April 2014.

                    In just 18 months SWLP had specified requirements, undergone a full tender and procurement process, as well as reconfigured and re-equipped the pathology laboratories across all three sites, crucially without interruption to the existing service delivery. Now, the majority of pathology services are provided from the main state-of-the-art ‘hub’ laboratories at St George’s, with satellite or ‘spoke’ fully automated clinical blood science laboratories at the two other busy district general hospital sites. The service provided by SWLP covers 3.5 million people across south-west London via the three hospitals, 200 GP practices and 30 healthcare centres, carrying out over 15 million core and specialist tests annually.

Adopting a hub-and-spoke model