Auto-receipting: the Countess of Chester laboratory approach

The Countess of Chester Hospital laboratory originally forged a partnership with Beckman Coulter in 2007, which led to the equipping of one of the first combined blood science units in the NHS. Martin Langan, the laboratory’s blood sciences manager, explained: “The outcome of that first collaboration has already seen quantifiable workflow improvements, a consistently reduced turnaround time, increased revenue opportunities, and the prospect of multidisciplinary-trained staff functioning within the new working environment.” The latest collaboration is part of the process of continuous improvement that Beckman Coulter offers its UK customers – designed specifically to help them address the ever-changing workload and staffing challenges of today’s NHS.

Leanne Annereau, Beckman Coulter marketing manager for Northern Europe, stressed: “Beckman Coulter is dedicated to supporting UK pathology and its service to patients. This is our prime focus. It enables us to provide the right level of long-term support, so a laboratory customer has the confidence it can deliver streamlined and improved NHS services to its patients while handling increasing workloads.”

Exploiting the potential of Remisol
Within blood sciences, the Chester laboratory processes approximately 3500 samples a day, with a 50/50 split between its internal and external customers. The initial manual stages of handling and logging samples can be one of the most time-consuming activities, often unpredictable and prone to human error. It can therefore have a negative impact on the consistency of overall turnaround times.