The Association for Clinical Biochemistry & Laboratory Medicine (ACB) welcomes NHS proposals to create community diagnostics hubs.
Commenting today (2nd October 2020) Professor Neil Anderson, President of the ACB said:
These proposals present an opportunity to serve the public health needs of the local population and enable the appropriate prioritisation of clinical diagnostic services. In future local clinical diagnostic services should not be disrupted to such an extent by a national public health crisis so as to cause the huge backlogs of demand that we have experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Community testing offers clear benefits to patients in terms of accessibility and increased economic activity around local centres. All of these factors contribute to better long term public health outcomes.
However, to achieve these ambitions community diagnostics services must have Clinical Leadership and be fully integrated with NHS pathology to ensure quality of delivery, integration of public health data and the sharing of best practice and scientific knowledge.
The ACB is a unique community of healthcare professionals of both scientists and medics. They possess a wealth of scientific knowledge and practical experience in the leadership and delivery of clinical diagnostics and we welcome the opportunity to work alongside NHS & NHSI on the practical implementation of these plans.
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