Faulty pathology system causes ‘significant’ issues for GPs

An ongoing fault with an acute trust’s new pathology system has left GPs with ‘significant’ workload issues and ‘anxiety’ for patient safety. 

At the start of this month, University Hospital Southampton (UHS) trust transferred to a new pathology IT system which resulted in issues with processing blood tests and communicating results. 

Wessex LMCs said the trust has shown a ‘distinct lack of understanding’ of general practice, which has caused ‘large issues’ and ‘an enormous associated workload’ for GPs.

GPs in the area told Pulse that there was immediately a ‘massive backlog’ from 1 July, as blood test requests were sent using the ‘old forms’ which the lab could not process quickly enough. 

However, one GP partner, who wished to remain anonymous, said there was ‘absolutely no communication with primary care’ to clarify that the old forms should not be used. 

As a result of this backlog, UHS introduced a ‘temporary measure’ which told GP practices they could only request ‘urgent blood tests’, meaning all routine blood tests were suspended.

This restriction was lifted last week, and UHS has since cleared the initial backlog, however GPs told Pulse that they are still not receiving blood test results, and those they do receive are often not in the correct format. 

Another Southampton GP partner, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that on top of the initial backlog – caused by slow processing of old forms – there has also been a ‘significant proportion of path results that aren’t coming into GP systems’. 

In one surgery, around 70% of bloods requested in one week had not yet received results. The GP partner said that "results are being processed at the hospital" but GPs "can’t see them" as a result of faults with the system.  She continued: "We are trying to make clinical decisions based on results and we’re not seeing them […] It’s causing a significant degree of anxiety and concern for patient safety."

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Source: Pulse, 23 July 2024