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Latest News and Developments
Scheme Redevelopment
The National Pathology Benchmarking Service is conducting a review and major overhaul of the service we provide next year. We want to ensure the scheme is delivering information that NHS Pathology departments can use to help achieve cost and efficiency savings targets, and demonstrate the value of their service to commissioners.
To this end we have prepared a very short survey to gain an understanding of what factors would influence any decision for potential users to participate (or not) in the scheme next year. This survey has been sent out to all NHS laboratories in England/Northern Ireland and we will be using the feedback to help guide the redevelopment. If you would like to participate in this survey please contact Andy Brooks either on 01782 733627 or a.brooks1@keele.ac.uk
Improvements to Analysis Tools
Data analysis tools have been made available to participants in this year's scheme, providing them with the ability to create custom charts with custom filters (e.g. only display labs of a similar size to their own). This year's tools feature two major improvements:
- We have now introduced 2-year sample data, allowing you to compare data from 2010/2011 with 2011/2012
- We have included a new Dashboard worksheet, which is fully customisable to show the data you are most interested in seeing
Further improvements will be made for next year as our significant overhaul begins to take shape.
Primary Care Benchmarking Project
We recently held a workshop in Birmingham to discuss progress made in the primary care benchmarking project which provided some invaluable feedback as we look to drive this project forward in 2013.
2012 proved to be a successful year in the ongoing development of the project, and led to the publication of a paper around appropriate use of HbA1c testing for the treatment of diabetes in the American Clinical Chemistry Journal (led by Dr Owen Driskell and Professor Tony Fryer). We are currently working on further research in this area and are extending our work to other comorbidities.
Recruitment to the Scheme
Subscriptions for the 2011-2012 data collection has now closed. If you are interested in joining the scheme for the 2012-2013 data collection please register your interest by emailing your details to Andy Brooks (a.brooks1@keele.ac.uk) who will send you the appropriate information and forms to complete when they become available in the New Year.
