Our Programmes of Work

Implementation of a collaborative pathology network across the seven Greater Manchester NHS provider organisations which will strive to deliver better patient care across various clinical and diagnostic pathways, provide system value and address health inequalities across the conurbation.

The programme has been designed to ensure that there is appropriate scrutiny and expertise when making any decision which will impact Greater Manchester patients or services.
Several working groups have been established with subject matter experts from clinical and non-clinical services who can provide expert knowledge and recommendations on a range of issues including:

• Workforce 
• Data
• Clinical Standardisation
• Procurement 
• Quality

Procure and implement a ground-breaking, state-of-art Digital Pathology Network that connects the eight cellular pathology departments in Greater Manchester, including their specialist services to compliment the achievement of the GM Sectra PACS system for Radiology to produce a full digital solution across diagnostics.

The Greater Manchester Pathology Network has secured £24.4 million from national funding to upgrade the Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) for four of the Pathology labs across Greater Manchester.

This significant investment will see the introduction of the same solution for the four labs, which is a move towards achieving connectivity between all Greater Manchester LIMS systems. This helps support pathology services to effectively manage patient samples and reporting.

By having this in place, it aims to drive standardisation and quality as well as improve lab productivity and efficiency, which means faster access to results for health professionals and patients.

The benefits of this means a quicker diagnosis for patients and any treatment needed can be started as soon as possible.

The aim is to implement the new LIMS system across Greater Manchester by 2024.

Standardisation of Pathology naming conventions, sample measurement units, and message interfaces across the GM Region

Funding has been secured from Health Innovation Manchester’s Momentum Fund to trial innovative technology to track histopathology samples from labs and theatres in hospitals through to receiving them in pathology labs across Greater Manchester.

The technology is provided by technology partner, Sensata Technologies.

The aim of the pilot is to track the unit sample taken in theatres and clinics at Tameside right through to being received at specimen reception in Wythenshawe Hospital. This will be done through unique barcodes added to each sample pot linked to a blue tooth tracking device on the container, which is then tracked on the vehicle transporting the sample.  The samples are scanned in at specimen reception at Wythenshawe Hospital to acknowledge they have been received.

The pilot will run for a 90-day period. During the pilot, the purpose will be to demonstrate the capabilities of the Sensata tracking technology, monitor any lost samples and quickly notify staff of this through the technology, as well as help staff anticipate when samples will be received.