Labtests on notice to fulfil contract

Labtests took over the contract for testing blood and other samples for the Auckland, Waitemata and Counties-Manukau DHBs from Diagnostic Medlab. Photo / Dean Purcell

Labtests has been told it is not meeting the requirements of its $190,000-a-day contract and needs to "lift its act" quickly, says the Auckland District Health Board's chairman.

Pat Snedden, who is overseeing the switchover from Diagnostic Medlab's services, said yesterday that long waiting times, delays in returning test results to doctors and the fact that some results had been sent back for the wrong people was not good enough.

But he said he had been assured the service was now being overseen by a "turnaround team" of experienced staff who would give advice to see improvements occur quickly.

Mr Snedden said Labtests, which took charge of Auckland's medical laboratory testing last month after a multimillion-dollar battle that ended up in the Supreme Court, had also been told it needed to improve its relationships with the medical fraternity.

"The company needs to lift its act and deliver what the public expect." he said.

"We need to see progress on all of these things and the public of Auckland are not going to be interested in sitting around and waiting for this to be remedied over a long period of time."

Doctors have complained about the service, saying Labtests staff have been hard to get hold of.

Mr Snedden said many of the quality and safety issues concerned communication.

"It's a whole lot about the intimate relationship between clinicians and the clinicians in the lab ... and the way that they communicate with each other.

"What we've had here in the first rollout for this process is not enough attention to that kind of clinical intimacy."

Labtests' chief executive Ulf Lindskog was replaced on Monday and Mr Snedden said he believed the short-term appointment of Australian Michael Coglin, one of two replacements for Mr Lindskog, would see "rapid improvements" in those relationships.

He said the team was giving Labtests direct advice and instructions to change processes where necessary.

"The company is co-operating totally in that. They see it entirely in their interests to get that right."

Mr Snedden said it was too soon to say if improvements would include creating more collection centres, which dropped from 85 to 56 under the changeover, but emphasised that any extra costs would not be met by taxpayers.

"There is no additional cost of any sort whatsoever on any of the moves we've taken here," he said.

"If Labtests have to provide more staff to do what they need to do, they'll pay for it."

All hope for the new service has not been lost.

"The lab is a superb facility and we've just got to get it working in the right way for the people, as they promised," Mr Snedden said.

When the battle between Labtests and Diagnostic Medlab began in 2006, Labtests' then-chief executive Tony Bierre wrote a letter to doctors that he wanted displayed on their waiting room walls for patients to see: "Labtests Auckland will ensure that you and your patients will not be affected by the change of supplier ... other than to notice an improved quality of service."