Patients offered extra choice for routine blood tests

COMMUNITY DIAGNOSTIC CENTRE WORKING WITH GP PRACTICES

- By DEBORAH HALL

IT was originally set up to deliver faster access to diagnostic tests usually carried out in hospitals. Now Hull’s £18m Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC), based in Albion Street, is working with a growing number of GP practices to offer routine blood tests more quickly too.

A two-week pilot project with four local surgeries launched in October, through which phlebotomy staff in the CDC took participating patients’ bloods in place of the practices’ own phlebotomy teams.

This working arrangement proved a success, with some patients who may otherwise have been waiting two weeks or more for blood tests in the surgery having accessed the same tests the same day, or within 24 hours, at the CDC.

As a result, the offer to take patients’ bloods on behalf of GP practice teams has been extended to more surgeries across Hull and the East Riding. Currently, 18 surgeries are now offering their patients the choice to have routine blood tests performed at the CDC if they choose to do so, including Burnbrae Surgery, in Holderness Road, which is run by the Haxby Group, and its three other practices in Newington, Kingswood and Orchard Park.