Digital Histopathology Outsourced Reporting

There is a nationally identified shortage of consultant histopathologists, many NHS trusts have difficulty recruiting staff and the existing workforce is ageing. Currently at the Trust there is approximately 30 vacant consultant PAs, with 43% of our consultants over 55. This level of staffing puts a strain on all diagnostic specialities with the department struggling to meet agreed 2ww reporting targets.<br/><br/>In addition, the Authority will expand its case load by approximately 20% in 2024. Given the situation described above, the Trust intends to outsource approximately 20k cases for digital reporting from November 2024 utilising the digital technology currently in deployment in the Lab, namely the existing LIMS (TCL), a range of whole slide digitisers and a shared instance of a cloud hosted Sectra PACS IDS7 system.<br/><br/>The supplier will provide Services as follows:<br/>a) The provision of circa 30k digital histopathology diagnostic case reports per annum<br/>b) The provision of digitally enabled MDT support for approximately 20 % of these cases, plus holiday cover. The provision of a fully digital service that requires minimal manual intervention over and above the processes routinely used by the Dept to direct and allocate cases, produce digital images, and produce digital clinical information.<br/><br/>The service must be fully integrated, IG compliant digital outsourced reporting service, making use of, through HL7 integration, the Trusts Sectra Histology PACS IDS7 and LIMS (Intersystems TCL), tracking solution and slide scanners, sufficiently to enable seamless viewing of images and clinical information, and reporting and return of reports to the PACS.