The Department of Health (DH) launched its 10 year Pathology Modernisation Programme in 1999. The aims of the programme are to improve the quality and efficiency of NHS pathology services and to encourage the NHS to introduce new technologies and new ways of working to deliver high quality care for patients.
In 2008, the Pathology Modernisation Programme has a number of key workstreams in place to deliver these aims, which are set out below.
Through the Chief Scientific Officer's Office, the Department of Health has commissioned a free tool to support workforce planning in pathology. Come to the free launch of this tool on Thursday 30th October 2008.
Pathology: towards a competence-based workforce, A report of the pathology profiling project is now available.
The Independent Review was set up in autumn 2005, and its interim report was published in August 2006. The Review has now submitted its final report to Ministers. Ministers will consider the Review's recommendations, and DH will publish an impact assessment for consultation in due course.
DH is working with NHS Connecting for Health on a project to develop electronic ordering of pathology tests, and reporting of test results, in primary care. This will be the first such system to use the Spine Messaging Service and the new pathology messaging standards.
DH has commissioned the National Pathology Service Improvement Team to work with NHS pathology services to implement service improvement techniques and Lean principles.
Action learning is learning from taking action for change on challenging issues. It has proved a successful technique for addressing problems with no obvious solution. In its second phase, the Pathology Action Learning Programme has supported around thirty action learning sets around the country, to tackle issues identified as priorities locally.
DH is supporting the development of the National Pathology Benchmarking Service for primary care. Benchmarking is an important tool to support demand management for pathology services, and an increased focus on appropriate testing for individual patients.
Workforce re-profiling pilots have been undertaken in three pathology services, as part of a wider DH programme of workforce modernisation.
The report of those pilots is now available
DH is working with Clinical Pathology Accreditation (UK) Ltd (CPA) and the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) on modernisation of pathology accreditation. A particular focus in 2007/2008 is on accreditation and point of care testing.
In August 2006, DH published Care and Respect in Death: Good Practice Guidance for NHS Mortuary Staff. Mortuary staff have an important and challenging role, providing an efficient, safe, secure service while ensuring care and respect in death and treating bereaved families sensitively. This document sets out key principles of good practice for staff in NHS mortuaries and provides advice on how those principles can be put into practice.
The National Service Framework for Renal Services recommends that kidney function should be assessed and monitored using an eGFR, rather than serum creatinine alone, in people identified as having an increased risk of chronic kidney disease.
Links are given below to the information sheets on eGFR (including information on how to order printed copies), produced for for laboratories and general practitioners, and a leaflet of frequently asked questions.
Some other documents published during the course of the Pathology Modernisation programme: