Source Bioscience UK Limited

Updated 20 December 2023

Source Bioscience UK Ltd is a private company offering a medical laboratory service. It provides diagnostic testing and information and services, to enable healthcare professionals make appropriate decisions about treatment options for people. The service has a broad laboratory service offering for genomic research, healthcare diagnostics and precision medicine innovations.

Clients include both NHS providers and the pprivate sector. It is accredited to ISO 15189:2012 medical laboratories and listed on the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS)Schedule of Accreditation.

Source BioScience UK Ltd is a large diagnostic laboratory in Nottingham. The laboratory does not have any direct contact with patients. Therefore, the building is inaccessible to the public with only staff and authorised visitors are permitted to enter. All services are conducted on site including: sample cutting and slide preparation, digital pathology, diagnostics, quality assessment, administrative work, finance, commercial and marketing and IT. Samples are received from NHS hospitals and independent hospitals and services. Approximately 150 individuals work on site.

There were two laboratories. A cellular pathology laboratory, primarily preparing tissue samples for the subsequent diagnosis of diseases such as cancer. There was also a laboratory suited to test for infectious diseases such as Covid-19. This was used during the pandemic but was currently being used for other activity. They also provide a digital pathology service whereby hospitals send digital images of sample (slides) to the service instead of physical slides for analysis by the consultant pathologists and their teams.

The provider had recently acquired an additional site in Chichester (LD Pathology) and had incorporated the site into their business continuity plan. Some of their senior staff worked across both sites.

The service was established in 2011 and there was a registered manager in post.

The service was regulated to provide the following regulated activity;

• Diagnostic and screening services.

Updated 20 December 2023

Source Bioscience UK Ltd is a private company offering a medical laboratory service. It provides diagnostic testing and information and services, to enable healthcare professionals make appropriate decisions about treatment options for people. The service has a broad laboratory service offering for genomic research, healthcare diagnostics and precision medicine innovations.

Clients include both NHS providers and the private sector.

We inspected this service but did not rate it as CQC do not yet have the legal power to rate pathology services.

We did not rate this service. We found:

• The service had enough staff to provide the right level of service. The service controlled infection risk well. Staff assessed risks, acted on them and kept good care records. The service managed safety incidents well and learned lessons from them.

• Managers monitored the effectiveness of the service and made sure staff were competent. Staff worked well together for the benefit of patients and had access to good information. Key services were available 5 days a week.

• Leaders ran services well using reliable information systems and supported staff to develop their skills. Staff felt respected, supported and valued. They understood the importance of the work they did and the impact on patients receiving care. Staff were clear about their roles and accountabilities. The service engaged well with local health care providers to plan and manage services and all staff were committed to improving services continually.

However:

• Not all staff had completed mandatory training.

Updated 20 December 2023