All six NHS Trusts within the West Yorkshire Pathology Network are now live on the NPIC digital pathology platform, after Airedale NHS Foundation Trust and Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust recently joined the other four NHS Trusts within the West Yorkshire area, (collectively known as the West Yorkshire Association of Acute Trusts [WYAAT]) and have now gone live.
This major milestone sees all pathology services across West Yorkshire benefit from the National Pathology Imaging Co-operative (NPIC) digital pathology platform. By working together as a partnership of hospital trusts, WYAAT is helping to address health inequalities for 2.7 million people who live across West Yorkshire and Harrogate, not to mention those patients that are referred to one of the NHS Trusts from outside of West Yorkshire.
This national platform will not only aid reducing waiting times and increase reliability of decisions but offer the ability for digital images to be extracted and anonymised for the purpose of research, training, and support testing of AI algorithms to help medical professionals make more efficient diagnoses.
Bash Hussain – NPIC Director commented: “It’s been an exceptional achievement and I’m really proud of what the NPIC team has delivered working with NHS Trusts across West Yorkshire. I would also like to thank our partners, Leica Biosystems, Sectra and Exponential-E. The programme will continue to deliver digital pathology across our national portfolio of NHS Trusts, with further exciting updates throughout 2024.”
Across West Yorkshire, the six Trusts deal with approximately 250,000 patient cases per annum generating approximately 850,000 digital images. This technology will enable over 90 consultant pathologists and a further 45 trainee consultants from across WYAAT to access pathology cases digitally.
The ambitious programme is led by NPIC and enabled in partnership with world leading industry experts including Sectra, Leica Biosystems and Exponential-E to supply unmatched technology and expertise in this exciting an expanding field.
NPIC is a unique collaboration between NHS, academic and industry partners, deploying digital pathology across hospitals in England and developing artificial intelligence tools to help diagnose cancer and other diseases. NPIC is supported by a £50m investment from the Data to Early Diagnosis and Precision Medicine challenge, managed and delivered by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). More information can be found at: www.npic.ac.uk
