HAEMOSTASIS AND THROMBOSIS
South of Tyne pathology network: coagulation expertiseintegraltosuccess
Haemostasis capacity in the north-east of England has enjoyed significant benefits through collaboration with Stago UK. Here, staff from the South Tyne region explain how this collaboration has developed and borne fruit in terms of compliance and efficiency.
The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead oversees a highly efficient centre of excellence for pathology services across the South Tyne region. The central hub was established seven years ago as part of a £12 million redevelopment. This includes an integrated blood sciences unit, with significantly expanded haemostasis testing capacity. Working closely with Stago UK, all specialist testing can now be carried out in-house. The laboratory credits its long-standing partnership with Stago as integral to its continued success.
Bringing all specialist testing back into the Gateshead central hub required substantial changes to laboratory workflow. A key performance indicator
The Gateshead laboratory.
(KPI) for Stago was to make sure this was achieved without disruption to routine testing turnaround times (TAT) and quality control (QC) compliance. Testing at Gateshead now includes Stago assays for thrombophilia and lupus anticoagulant screening; monitoring of the new direct oral anticoagulants; factor assays and Stago’s unique solution for diagnosing von Willebrand disease, which can detect and distinguish between quantitative and qualitative von Willebrand factor (VWF) deficiencies. Feeding into the hub are two acute laboratory sites at Sunderland Royal and South Tyneside. Collectively, they form part of the Gateshead Health NHS Trust, with coagulation services handling more than 500,000 individual tests annually.
Adaptable and committed service Lee Sudlow, manager for haematology, blood transfusion and immunology at Gateshead’s haematology department, explained: “Bringing haemostasis testing in-house has enabled us to provide our clinicians and GPs with a faster and more efficient service. But speed is only one part of delivering that enhanced service. To satisfy our own customers, we needed to be confident in the quality, breadth of reagents available and consistency of our results across the network. Gateshead is a forward-looking NHS network, constantly looking at future diagnostic developments. “We need partners who can keep up,” added Mr. Sudlow. “Over the seven years that Stago has been a partner, its commitment to supporting us stands out. We value the expertise of its staff and their willingness to understand and adapt the offering to suit our specific needs. Selecting the company as our haemostasis provider has certainly been integral in making our laboratory processes more efficient, enabling us to meet our long-term key performance indicators.” A recent example of Stago support
WWW.PATHOLOGYINPRACTICE.COM AUGUST 2021
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