REPORT
GOOD SCIENCE EQUALS GOOD MEDICINE
For the kids: innovation in paediatric screening and diagnostics
A recent GSTS Innovation Academy meeting included coverage of the latest laboratory developments in child health. Tony Sackville reports.
Newborns, children and young people are particularly vulnerable to a wide range of infectious diseases and other life-threatening conditions. Unfortunately, healthcare monitoring services show that significant markers of child health – cancer survival rates and markers of diabetic control, for example – are worse in the UK than in comparable countries. Politicians and policy- makers may demand improvements, but it is most often physicians and clinical diagnostic scientists who hold the key to innovation and improvement on the ground. Earlier this year, GSTS Pathology held the inaugural one-day Innovation Academy event in London, where more than 100 laboratory scientists from Guy’s and St Thomas’ and King’s College Hospitals NHS Foundation Trusts (partner trusts in GSTS Pathology) shared the latest diagnostic innovations in four areas: child health, keeping people healthy, infectious diseases and next- generation diagnostics. This report covers three examples of the innovative science in the area of child health, highlighting recent innovations in creating a 24/7 metabolic biochemistry service, newborn screening for metabolic disease, and developing a steroidomic service.
RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH In July 2012, the Children and Young People’s Health Outcome Forum published proposals for how health-related care for children and young people can be improved,1 a key message being that poor or delayed diagnosis of conditions impacts on patient
728 THE BIOMEDICAL SCIENTIST DECEMBER 2013
outcomes. The report explained that while there have been some “notable improvements in measured outcomes for children and young people over recent years, the evidence is telling us that this is at a slower rate in the UK than in comparable countries in northern and western Europe.”
February 2013,2
The Department of Health responded in setting out the first stage
of its collaborative work to improve health outcomes for children and young people. Under consideration for inclusion in the NHS Outcomes Framework are four new outcome indicators recommended by the Forum, including time from first NHS presentation to diagnosis or start of treatment.
Affecting every cell in the body, steroids may control as many as 200 genes.
With this in mind, those involved in delivering diagnostic services are ideally placed to review current practices and to generate innovative new approaches that reduce the time through to diagnosis and treatment, with the aim of improving the patient pathway and reducing hospital stays.
SEVEN-DAY METABOLIC BIOCHEMISTRY SERVICE The GSTS Pathology metabolic biochemistry service at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust is one of the largest centres in England, providing adult testing and specialist paediatric services for the Evelina Children’s Hospital. In collaboration with Great Ormond Street Hospital, it is seeking to establish the UK’s first seven-day metabolic biochemistry service. This is in line with the NHS Improvement report Equality for All: Delivering Safe Care – Seven Days a Week,3 which states: “There is a growing body of
National Cancer Institute/Dr S Korsmeyer, Metabolism Branch, Section of Cellular Immunology.
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