Lean laboratories: the prerequisite to survive rising pressure?

Laboratories across the UK are facing never before seen pressure. Cancer Research UK warned as recently as last November that the UK’s pathology services are now at tipping point, struggling to cope with the number of patient samples that need to be tested, with potentially serious implications for cancer survival.

            Pathology pressures are now the material of national newspaper headlines, and rising demand will only accelerate. Concurrent to warnings from charities, other pressures are mounting. An endless evolution of social and digital media is driving greater public awareness of new technology and treatment options that are currently or imminently available. Healthcare professionals are now faced with new service delivery demands from an increasingly complex landscape of rising co-morbidities and better-informed customers.

            Laboratories are certainly feeling the knock-on effects. Healthcare growth areas range from genetic profiles, through to new techniques in screening for diseases and monitoring chronic conditions, as well as point-of-care and personal device testing. Each one invariably depends on some form of supportive traditional laboratory testing.