The Laboratory Medicine department can be found on the first floor of Weston General Hospital, opposite Sandford ward. It is signposted from the foyer and on the first floor adjacent to the main stairwell and lift area.
The services provided from Pathology include;
We always welcome feedback (suggestions for improvement, complaints or compliments) from our users regarding our services. If you wish to contact us, please do so by email, telephone or letter, explaining the area of concern.
The Pathology Head of Service is: Adrian Brown
The Pathology Deputy Head of Service is: Patrick Simms
The Pathology Quality Manager is: Natalia Casey
If you feel we have not adequately resolved your query or concern, our Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) and Complaints Team will be happy to help you.
We follow the Trust Complaints procedure (available on request) and have incorporated this into our own departmental policy. An official complaint received will be acknowledged and responded to within three working days. The complaint is then processed within an agreed timescale with the complainant, although we aim to fully investigate and resolve the issue within 30 days. All complaints are discussed at management meetings to ensure those relevant to the issue are made aware and can help decide and implement any corrective actions.
For general pathology information, please view our Pathology User Guide:
For test and discipline specific information, please refer to our discipline User Guides:
For User Survey results, please see below:
Weston General Laboratory Medicine currently holds accreditation with UKAS for ISO 15189:2012 for the majority of its tests. The full accreditation scope can be found by searching our UKAS number (8382) on the UKAS website: Search UKAS accredited organisations. Additionally, the Blood Transfusion Laboratory is MHRA Compliant and the Mortuary service holds a HTA license.
The Laboratory participates in approved External Quality Assessment (EQA) schemes covering the test repertoire performed on site. The laboratory also has a system of internal audits, customer satisfaction surveys, policies for monitoring of complaints and test turnaround times which together aim to ensure that standards are met, and improvements are made to ensure we provide a high quality and continuously improving service to our users.
The accreditation status of our chosen referral laboratories can be found on the UKAS website and is checked regularly to confirm that these laboratories are working to the correct ISO standards and are thus participating in approved EQA schemes for the tests performed by them. Please refer to our user handbooks below to find out which tests are referred and to which laboratories.
Please note the Laboratories are currently (2023-24) undergoing a managed service contract change which means a replacement to a large number of our analysers. Please see the attached letter for more information and the attached tables providing you with information regarding which tests are changing platforms and the status of their accreditation during this period.
The Laboratory Medicine department across UHBW utilises the Winpath Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS). Due to the limitations of this system, we are currently unable to fully meet the requirements of the UKAS publication GEN 6 – Reference to accreditation and multilateral recognition signatory status.
The Gen 6 publication sets out the requirements of laboratory reports for the appropriate use of UKAS logos and the need to identify tests that are accredited and distinguish from those that are not. Whilst it is possible to enter a short statement at the end of each report, the referencing of the accreditation status of tests on the same page as test results, could interfere with the interpretation of pathology results (particularly those that have interpretive comments or a high number of assays reported). Instead, the department highlights those reports that contain tests that are not currently on our scope of accreditation. This can be found by searching our UKAS number (8382) on the UKAS website: Search UKAS accredited organisations.