Doctors flag tests worry

Pathology shake-up in city brings delays

RECENT changes to Geelong’s pathology systems are resulting in delays for GPs, who could be forced to send patients on to emergency departments to get tests completed faster.

Thirty staff — 27 of whom took voluntary redundancy — were cut at Australian Clinical Labs on March 1.

Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Victorian branch chair Dr Cameron Loy said GPs could be forced to turn to the hospital emergency department.

“ACL as a company they’re going to make a business change … unfortunately we’re going to have to adapt,” Dr Loy said. “That’s their choice.

“The impact on us it means there’s a slower turnaround for results to come back to us.

“These slower turnarounds occur because the samples are being sent to Melbourne.”

Dr Loy, who is based in Lara, said he recently ordered pathology testing for a patient with a febrile illness who was about to head overseas.

The previous two-day result turnaround became five.

“It’s true we can tick urgent but really in a circumstance like that it’s not that I want that result that night … there’s no place between urgent and non-urgent,” Dr Loy said.

Dr Loy said the changes would mean doctors ticking urgent on more requests, or potentially moving more people into emergency departments to get tests done more quickly.

“Unfortunately we’re going to have to make changes to how we do things as well which may involve more cost (to the health system),” Dr Loy said.

An Australian Clinical Labs spokeswoman said ACL employed more than 280 people in Geelong.

“We recently changed the focus of the lab and the mix and number of staff within it,” the spokeswoman said.

“As a result, 27 people took voluntary redundancies and three were given involuntary redundancies.

“Scientists, scientific technicians and pathologists continue to make up the majority of people employed at our Geelong laboratory.”

When asked about slower turnaround times for pathology results, the spokeswoman said that the Geelong lab was now focused on hospital and urgent community work so that critical patients and their doctors received the level of care required.

“We measure our hospital turnaround times against our contracted service level agreements and turnaround times for community results are measured against international industry benchmarks,” she said.

“In the majority of cases, we continue to meet our turnaround time obligations for both types of work.

“It is important to understand that our lab staff are still learning a new laboratory information system and other upgraded technologies, so we thank the local medical community for understanding that this is a challenging time for them.”

Barwon Health’s chief medical officer, Sean Jespersen, said that there were requirements for turnaround times in the organisation’s contract for ACL’s pathology services.

“We closely monitor their performance to ensure any changes don’t compromise patient care,” Associate Professor Jespersen said.