An independent report into the capabilities of the workforce at Auckland's new medical laboratory provider Labtests suggests the company appears to exclude input from its medical director, pathologist Richard Lloydd.
The report says Labtests' "organisational paradigm" appears to exclude Dr Lloydd's clinical input and leadership, the NZ Doctor newspaper said on its website.
Fiscal responsibility was a palpable pressure, but while there was a case for this being the responsibility of the operations manager, there was a clinical responsibility that needed to be developed alongside the fiscal one, author Dr Ian Beer said.A clinically led approach could help to rein in some of the excessive demands placed on the laboratory service by referrers and enhance fiscal viability, he suggested.
After two-year legal action Labtests took over the contract in August for the testing of blood and other samples for the Auckland, Waitemata and Counties-Manukau district health boards (DHBs).Labtests won the eight-year $560 million contact after a bitter battle with incumbent Diagnostic MedLab (DML) and has faced criticism, including from doctors, over its performance.
Last month, the DHBs took over the quality control of the laboratory testing and said Diagnostic Medlab would resume about 10 percent of services for four years.Dr Beer described staffing in Labtests collection centres and in the lab as "light" but said it was coping by bringing in locums or exporting histology slides to sister lab, Southern Community Laboratories in the South Island.
He also noted the lack of experienced staff working as technicians, scientists and phlebotomists as well as some "cumbersome" processes putting pressure on the lab.Dr Beer said he was satisfied the lab would meet New Zealand standards in March 2010 and was impressed by the company's facilities.
"The analytical component would be the envy of many hospital and community labs," he said.Earlier laboratory provider transition in the Waikato had taken two or three months to resolve logistical, staffing and analytical problems, and in Auckland the issues were compounded by greater size of organisation.
Separately, a meeting about community laboratory services organised by Auckland GPs has been called for tonight, but health minister Tony Ryall, has declined to attend.DHB representatives were originally excluded, but Auckland DHB chair and regional DHBs representative Pat Snedden was now expected to attend.
