NEWS
IBMS, RCPath and ACB collaborate for POCT guidance
The Institute of Biomedical Science (IBMS) has collaborated with The Royal College of Pathologists (RCPath) and The Association for Clinical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine (ACB) to produce a strategy document aimed at those responsible for planning and commissioning novel patient services outside of traditional care settings. Point of Care Testing: National Strategic Guidance for at Point of Need Testing outlines the strategic requirements necessary to adopt POCT where it is needed and how to deliver safe and high quality POCT within an accreditable framework. Increasingly, diagnostics are being flagged as the enabler of innovative, effective, patient-centred care closer to the patient’s home, at the point of need. By setting out the questions that need to be considered, and who the experts are that understand the clinical need, the IBMS says
it is, “placing a marker down and stating that diagnostic testing is the expert domain of our members, whatever the setting.” The paper outlines:
n laboratory experts should be used as a source of trusted advice to support the design, assessment, implementation, and delivery of diagnostic services outside of the traditional laboratory setting
n engagement across healthcare organisations is critical to understand the flow of diagnostic information, from wherever it is undertaken, to the patient record, with visibility for all clinical staff who have reason to access this information
n full and properly costed financial resources need to be identified to support high quality, fit for purpose and safe POCT services
n new technology brings new opportunities for the better use of the existing workforce, creating a more agile workforce.
The IBMS encourages the sharing of this document with service leaders embarking on testing outside of the traditional laboratory setting – to inform and advise the development of innovative, safe and effective patient pathways. The paper will be shared widely across government channels and to all relevant organisations. Read the document here - https://www.
ibms.org/resources/documents/point-of- care-testing-national-strategic-guidance-for- at-point/
Cancer focus for England’s first Integrated Pathology Unit
The Institute of Cancer Research, London, and its hospital partner The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust have announced the opening of their new joint Integrated Pathology Unit (IPU). England’s first centre of its kind is set to make significant improvements in cancer diagnosis and treatment – by combining pioneering digital imaging with artificial intelligence. The new Unit will enable researchers -
who are particularly focusing on clinical trial research - to make discoveries to develop new tests for cancer and speed up the diagnosis process for results.
The IPU – funded by The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity, The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) and The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Royal Marsden and ICR Biomedical Research Centre – is the first Unit of its kind in England, with access to a large portfolio of pioneering clinical trials.
Pathologists working at the new Unit, based in the NIHR Centre for Molecular Pathology in Sutton, are already digitising tissue samples taken from patients being treated at The Royal Marsden, or patients undergoing clinical trials in other cancer
centres around the UK – as well as tissue research images generated in the IPU or other ICR research laboratories. Researchers at the IPU – which is one of the most advanced translational digital pathology operations in Europe – are also combining digital pathology, tissue hybridisation and AI technologies to help better understand key aspects of cancer. New technologies they will develop could also reveal how different cancers interact with their environment as they develop and spread and help to diagnose patients more precisely.
10
JUNE 2023
WWW.PATHOLOGYINPRACTICE.COM
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56
