DIAGNOS TICS
The benefit of this is obvious – testing potential COVID patients away from hospital settings helps to isolate the spread of the disease, protecting the staff and patients in hospitals, and ensuring minimum contact of the suspected COVID carrier as they leave the house to be tested. Similarly, many hospitals already outsource some of their histopathology reporting. The benefit of doing this not only speeds up diagnostic times but increases the capacity of patients who can be seen, as hospital time is only used for specimen collection. Furthermore, outsourcing of reporting
services is already a critical part of hospitals’ diagnostic pathways and enables hospitals to access specialist pathologists and laboratories, across the country, rather than relying on their internal staffing capacity or that of nearby facilities, who may or may not have the relevant specialties or laboratory capabilities in-house.
Outsourcing diagnostic services supports the return to the ‘new normal’, as hospitals are able to increase their testing capacity by outsourcing services, therefore significantly reducing the time spent waiting for a report or result.
Outsourcing to save the NHS There is no doubt that the NHS has dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic impressively. Despite the challenges COVID-19 created, and the personal risks involved, our doctors and nurses continued to work tirelessly to tackle the disease and save hundreds of thousands of lives.
The struggle is not over yet, though, and the toughest times are perhaps yet to come for NHS staff. Considering options such as remote diagnostics, and outsourcing elective care, may just be the solution that we need to relieve the pressure on NHS staff. The resumption of everyday healthcare
services is expected to take months, possibly even years. A study and report published by the BJS Society predicts that over 400,000 elective care procedures are backlogging every month.11
The logical solution to support with this problem is to either increase capacity (which is not an easy task) or outsource some relevant services immediately to ensure patients do not suffer the implications of this growing backlog. The priority now must be on ensuring patient safety – guaranteeing patients have access to the care they need, when they need, without having to join a waiting list, while their health deteriorates. Again, the precedent for outsourcing in the NHS has already been set – directors and managers within the health service already recognise the benefits of outsourcing in many areas of healthcare as a tool for supporting capacity and ensuring efficiency of treatment.12
NOVEMBER 2020
Outsourced providers have also had time to prepare during the lockdown period, as the ability to carry out tests during lockdown was restricted, and they have already been able to adapt to social distancing measures and ensure their working procedures are streamlined to meet testing demands, as well as ramping up their capacity to support the NHS with their backlogs of patients. In elective care, the speed and efficiency of testing is key. If the NHS is to ensure elective care testing goes ahead with minimal delays, it will be absolutely critical to consider outsourcing some of these services to enable this.
Diagnosing patients in the ‘new normal’
The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us many things about how the NHS works, and how it should work in the future. As the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, said during his speech at the Royal College of Physicians in July: “Coronavirus has catalysed deep structural shifts in healthcare.”13
The move
towards more innovative, collaborative, and patient-focused care will be absolutely crucial moving forward, if we are to guarantee the success of the NHS. It is important that, in healthcare, we seek to work collaboratively across the different intersecting branches of the system but also explore new methods of care. From outsourcing diagnostic services to solve capacity issues, to increasing remote diagnostic capabilities in order to protect patients and ensure vital testing goes ahead – it has never been so important to consider new ways of working to continue providing necessary patient care in these unprecedented times.
References 1 Morris, J. (2019). ‘Elective Care’ in The Nuffield Trust [Internet]. Available at: https://www.
nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/elective-care
2 British Medical Association. (2020). ‘The hidden impact of COVID-19 on patient care in the NHS in England.’ [Internet]. Available at: https://www.
bma.org.uk/media/2840/the-hidden-impact-of- covid_web-pdf.pdf
3 Cancer Research UK. (2020). Coronavirus and Cancer [Internet]. Available at: https://www.
cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/cancer-in- general/coronavirus-and-cancer
4 NHS Providers. (2020). The New Normal, Balancing Covid-19 and other healthcare needs [Internet]. Available at:
https://nhsproviders.org/ media/689531/spotlight-on-non-covid-care.pdf
5 Goodwin, H. (2020). ‘Austerity pushed NHS to the bring before Covid-19 crisis, think-tank says’ in The London Economic [Internet]. Available at:
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/ austerity-pushed-nhs-to-the-brink- before-covid-19-crisis-think-tank-says/27/07/ 6 Ng, Kate. (2020). ‘Coronavirus: NHS urges people
About the author
Clarissa Pattinson is as a contract specialist for the diagnostics team at HealthTrust Europe, where she is responsible for managing supplier relationships, sourcing top quality goods and services for partners, and advising on diagnostic procurement solutions. She is an expert on diagnostic services in the healthcare sector.
WWW.CLINICALSERVICESJOURNAL.COM l 83
to go to hospital for emergencies as A&E visits fall by 50 per cent’ in The Independent [Internet]. Available at:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/ uk/home-news/coronavirus-nhs-ae-emergency-
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7 Cancer Research UK. (2020). One third of cancer patients say Coronavirus has impacted their treatment [Internet]. Available at: https://www.
cancerresearchuk.org/about-us/cancer-news/news- report/2020-07-28-one-third-of-cancer-patients- say-coronavirus-has-impacted-their-treatment
8 National Cancer Institute. (2018). Cancer Screening [Internet]. Available at:
https://www.cancer.gov/ about-cancer/screening#:~:text=Early%20 detection%20is%20important%20because,of%20 dying%20from%20that%20cancer.
9 The Royal College of Physicians. (2020). Pathology Facts and Figures [Internet]. Available at: https://
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11 Macdonald, N., et al. (2020). ‘The building backlog of NHS elective cases post Covid-19’ in BJS Society [Internet]. Available at: https://bjssjournals.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bjs.11817
12 Health Business. (2020). Is outsourcing more essential than ever? [Internet]. Available at: https://
healthbusinessuk.net/features/outsourcing-more- essential-ever
13 Department of Health and Social Care. (2020). The future of healthcare [Internet]. Available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/ the-future-of-healthcare?utm_source=a1234c3d- 92af-466b-acab-2f1fba0a69b3&utm_ medium=email&utm_campaign=govuk- notifications&utm_content=immediate
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