Basic errors lay behind trust’s botched IT upgrade, leak reveals

A string of basic errors led to a teaching trust botching a pathology lab IT upgrade, causing major disruption to tests, according to an internal review seen by HSJ.

The problems with Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust’s upgrade to the Clinisys WinPath system in December resulted in tens of thousands of blood tests being lost or delayed, with managers admitting patients were potentially put at risk.

An internal LTHT review of how “communication and escalation” problems contributed to the disruption, including:

• Training delivered very late – even on the day of roll out – or not at all.
• No end-to-end testing of the system took place prior to roll out.
• There was no engagement with primary care to understand how the update could affect their workflows.
• Ineffective communication channels for escalation of problems.
• Lessons from previous NHS WinPath roll outs were not learned.

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Source: HSJ, 30 May 2025