You may have seen on the news this morning about the national shortage of blood testing bottles.
We have been given further advice today about what we need to do. As of this afternoon, we have been advised that all primary care and community blood testing must be halted until 17 September 2021, except for clinically urgent testing such as
- Bloods that are required to facilitate a two week wait (suspected cancer) referral
- Bloods that are extremely overdue and/or essential for safe prescribing of medication or monitoring of condition
- Bloods that if taken could avoid a hospital admission or prevent an onward referral
- Those with suspected sepsis or conditions with a risk of death or disability
We are going to be cancelling all other blood test appointments which have already been booked, and we will put people onto a waiting list for blood tests when we have a further supply of bottles.
This is going to be very difficult for us not only now, but also after the supply increases again, as we will have a lot of blood tests to catch up on, so please bear with us.