About our service
Our Pathology service has laboratories located at University Hospital of North Durham and Darlington Memorial Hospital, as well as an on-site presence for sample receipt at Bishop Auckland Hospital.
Diagnostic testing is an integral part of the healthcare equation. Everything that happens, whether diagnosing a disease or monitoring a therapy, usually involves a laboratory test at some point. We provide a high quality diagnostic and consultative service to clinical users and to primary and secondary care providers in the locality.
Pathology is led by our Clinical Director Dr Paul Barrett, together with the Pathology Senior Management Team consisting of Clinical and Scientific staff.
The departments are split into specialties led by a Clinical Lead and a Scientific Lead or Manager. The specialties are as follows:
- Cellular Pathology and Mortuary (UKAS accredited testing laboratory No.9717)
- Clinical Biochemistry and Immunology (UKAS accredited testing laboratory No.8666)
- Haematology and Transfusion (UKAS accredited testing laboratory No.8770)
- Microbiology & Serology (UKAS accredited testing laboratory No.9341)
Our Pathology service holds full accreditation (excluding the Andrology service) and complies with all legislative requirements governing the practices and competence of Medical Laboratories. Temporary amendments to service accreditation can be found in the accreditation amendments section.
Laboratory accreditation
Our Pathology Laboratories are mainly accredited to ISO 15189:2012, however due to the nature of the way in which UKAS grants accreditation, it is the test that is accredited and not the laboratory. Find out more below.
Our Pathology Laboratories are mainly accredited to ISO 15189:2012, however due to the nature of the way in which UKAS grants accreditation, it is the test that is accredited and not the laboratory.
UKAS maintains a register of laboratories that are accredited to ISO 15189:2012, which can be accessed via the UKAS website . The UKAS website holds a schedule of accreditation for the laboratory that lists the individual tests for which the laboratory are currently accredited for. Other tests may be awaiting completion of Extension to Scope (i.e. new test that is in the process of being added to the schedule of accreditation). Therefore pathology reports may contain a combination of accredited and unaccredited tests.
Please be assured that it is normal practice for laboratories to be accredited for a number of tests, however there could be a number of tests that are unaccredited. This does not necessarily indicate that these tests are of inferior quality, the tests have the same level of internal and external quality assurance associated with them, they are just yet to be officially accredited by UKAS.
Users of the CDDFT pathology service may wish to be certain that all tests they are sending for analysis are accredited by UKAS. This information can be obtained using the link above to the UKAS website. After viewing the UKAS Schedule of Accreditation, if you would like to discuss the accreditation status of any of our tests please contact the Pathology Quality Manager initially to discuss, and if further assurance or information is required (i.e. how we assure quality results for the test) this information can be provided upon request from the departmental lead.
Microbiology
Microbiology department UHND are now testing COVID-19 via PCR and Rapid testing methods.
However this is not currently part of the department's UKAS scope of accreditation (9341) at this time the test will remain unaccredited but this will not affect the quality or standards of the results produced.
This does not affect the quality or standards of the results produced; it is a temporary state while the department awaits re-assessment at the end of summer.
Cellular pathology
The department is performing male fertility testing for hospital patients. This test is not currently part of the UKAS scope of accreditation (9717).
The department is also performing immunofluorescence on fresh skin samples. This test is not part of the UKAS scope of accreditation (9717).
This does not affect the quality or standards of the results produced.
For further information please contact the Pathology Quality Manager: rebecca.
Latest news & updates
We're always interested in the views of our users. To keep users updated, we also produce a regular newsletter to share changes in repertoire, latest news and other useful information.
