LABORATORY MANAGEMENT
Improving blood services with new technology in south west London
Earlier this year, South West London Pathology (SWLP) celebrated the installation of new analysers and automated tracking at Croydon Hospital’s essential service laboratory. Six months on, Pathology in Practice Editor Andy Myall caught up with SWLP‘s Managing Director Simon Brewer to see how the project is progressing.
South West London Pathology (SWLP) is an NHS pathology partnership providing a wide range of services to a large population of over 3.5 million people across south west London, made up of five hospital sites: St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation
Trust, Croydon Health Services NHS Trust, Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Epsom Hospital, and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust, to provide a single, integrated pathology service across south west London. It offers a wide range of diagnostic and clinical support services
to these five hospitals, 450 GPs across London and surrounding areas, as well as other NHS institutions and private organisations.
In January 2025 SWLP marked an important early step in its programme to update its blood sciences laboratories, celebrating the installation of cutting- edge technology from Beckman Coulter at its essential services laboratory at Croydon Hospital. The installation of new analysers – including a Dxl 9000 Analyser – and automated tracking at Croydon was the first step of the rollout of new blood sciences equipment at all SWLP sites across the network – covering clinical chemistry, haematology, coagulation, serology, and pre-analytical automation – in collaboration with Beckman Coulter. The new laboratories will deliver unified clinical blood science services, ensuring a wide range of medical services and diagnostic tests, enhancing the overall efficiency of healthcare delivery in south west London. When fully updated the five SWLP laboratories will perform over 30,000 daily tests when operating at full capacity, allowing for faster test result turnaround times and improved patient outcomes.
Six months on, Pathology in Practice was invited back to Croydon to speak to SWLP’s Managing Director Simon Brewer and hear how the upgraded equipment was helping patients and about the next steps in the project.
Simon Brewer is Managing Director of South West London Pathology, an NHS pathology partnership serving over 3.5 million people.
WWW.PATHOLOGYINPRACTICE.COM SEPTEMBER 2025
PiP: Tell us how the installation of the new equipment went? Simon Brewer: We went live with the chemistry analysers in October (2024) and then with the track system in January of this year. In between we had several other go-live dates for various pieces of equipment as we migrated off platforms, and the space was created for the new
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