On 03/12/2019 15:16, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Andrew wrote:
On 29/11/2019 13:40, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
whisky-dave wrote:
Blood and urine tests general check up, I got the results back in
under 24 hours, if that was an NHS hospital I'd have to wait at least
a week.

Really? If the results are needed urgently, they are processed
urgently. If not needed urgently, why waste money on processing them
as if they were?


Some blood tests have to be done as soon after taking the blood as
possible, certainly within a few hours. EDTA samples for example.

Of course.

It's the built-in delays of the NHS procedures that takes a week.

Are you saying it costs no more to process such things quickly? Perhaps
you'd have someone standing by to rush it to the lab, then wait for the
results, and rush them back?


When you are in hole stop digging.

Once the specimen has arrived in the lab and been through what ever
admin procedures are particular to that lab, then
'Simple' blood tests like Full Blood count, Urea& electrolytes,
etc etc take as long as the American Beckman-Coulter counter
takes to process the sample. The Coulter counter model S(*) which
every larger path lab had in the 1970s, took about 40 seconds to
process the sample and another 20 seconds to stamp the results
onto the multi-part 'NCR' request form, part of which was
returned to the requester.

(*) Haemoglobin, red Cell Count, White Cell count, Mean red cell
volume, Haematocrit and two calculated indices.

Some tests take a lot longer because a lot more manual intervention
is needed. Some are deliberately delayed so a batch of tests can
be done in one go. Some may have to be sent away to a larger hospital
that has the analytical equipment to do the test. Plenty of lab tests
(?most) are not life-critical, so it doesn't matter a jot if it can be
done the same day or within a couple of weeks. Clotted samples that have
to be spun down to remove the serum can be frozen almost indefinately in
a -20C or -60 C freezer.

If the patient is in A&E or an inpatient the results of the
life-critical tests are available within 30 minutes or less if
that hospital has a path lab on site (which all A&E sites will
have).

Of course again. Anything else would be stupid.