NHSE steps up action on blood test tube shortage

According to NHSE guidance today, non-essential blood tests should be stopped and GPs should prioritise genomic tests over others. Vitamin D testing should also be stopped in all, but "exceptional circumstances" amid shortages in the blood collection tube stocks. 

The guidance, issued by the NHSE has advised genomics for testing of unwell neonates, prenatal screening and cancer diagnoses are “a high priority". NHSE have also said changes to testing “should be made in consultation with individual patients” and that “it is important to make clear that routine tests will be deferred only where it is clinically safe to do so”.

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Source: HSJ, 10 August 2021