Four trusts pull back from commercial pathology option

The current configuration of three hubs and four essential service laboratories is likely to continue – with a potential move to two hubs in the future “should there be sufficient evidence to do so,” according to a report to Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells Trust’s board.

They are being asked to drop the idea of outsourcing services or working with a major commercial partner. “There was little appetite for either of these commercial models from pathology services or from CEOs. We have been unable to locate a successful outsourced or strategic partnership that would warrant such a move,” the report continues.

Instead, a single pathology service for the area will have a single management structure and operating model for pathology services which will “evolve over time.”

But the trusts will invest in a laboratory information management system (LIMS) as two of the three pathology services need to replace their current systems urgently and pose a clinical risk in the near future. The trusts are likely to go out to tender for this imminently and it should be implemented at the end of 2022.

Meanwhile, a joint managed equipment service contract covering analytic equipment and associated consumables – replacing trusts’ individual contracts – is expected to save £22.4m over 13 years but won’t be fully implemented until the end of 2026.

Currently, the hubs are hosted by Dartford and Gravesham Trust (which also serves Medway Foundation Trust); Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells; and East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust. 

Amanda Price, programme manager for the project, said: “We are at outline business case stage and we are sharing these with all Kent and Medway trust boards over the next two months.”

Trusts have been under pressure from NHS Improvement to reorganise pathology into networks, covering multiple trusts and potentially driving savings through consolidation. NHSI proposed hub and spoke models with one or two hubs running high volume tests.

HSJ reported last year that a reduction in the number of hubs and outsourcing or a commercial partner was being considered by the Kent and Medway trusts.

The setting of the North Kent Pathology Services hub – which meant non-urgent tests were no longer processed at Medway – was beset with problems which included the recall of more than 3,000 patients in 2018 and 2019.