Transformation

In 2021, SYNLAB formed a pathology partnership with Guy’s and St Thomas’, and King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trusts to deliver and transform NHS pathology services across south east London. The contract runs for 15 years, with the option to extend for a further five.

The pathology service – Synnovis – has the needs of patients and local people at its heart. The partnership provides diagnostics, testing and digital pathology services for hospitals, GPs and other NHS healthcare providers, as well as for a number of other consumers across the UK.

Synnovis is focused on an evolution of local pathology services, building on the strengths of the service as it is today. The same excellent scientists, clinicians and other colleagues are continuing to work under current partnership arrangements, and are directly involved in delivering tangible improvements both to the quality of patient care, and to the experience of clinicians providing that care.

Faster testing services and state-of-the-art laboratories will help to improve outcomes for patients, enable more people to be cared for in the community instead of being admitted to hospital, and support the NHS in managing patient flows within its hospitals more effectively.

Synnovis is committed to improving ways of working for clinicians and scientists, and will also deliver better value for money for the NHS.

As well as delivering pathology services and in line with the NHS’s own clinical vision and strategy, Synnovis will be responsible for transforming existing hospital-based laboratory and diagnostic services into an integrated hub and spoke pathology network.

A state-of-the-art ‘hub’ laboratory is under development at Friars Bridge Court, in Blackfriars Road, London, providing access to improved services and equipment for routine and some specialist testing. On-site hospital laboratories will be turned into essential services laboratories (the spokes), focusing on the rapid turnaround of urgent tests, such as those needed for A&E departments.

The transition of services to the hub will be complete by 2025.

The NHS is also benefitting from SYNLAB’s global laboratory and diagnostic network, which provides access to a wide range of clinical, scientific and operational expertise, as well as innovative research and development on an international scale. This has proven to be extremely valuable in SYNLAB’s existing partnerships with the NHS, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic where UK access to supplies was critical, and where knowledge of how SYNLAB’s diagnostic testing services had responded elsewhere in Europe helped to inform and strengthen our own response here in the UK.