Labtests staff not cleared to work

Five pathologists coming to New Zealand for roles at Labtests are yet to be registered. Photo / Dean Purcell

Five of the pathologists listed on Labtests' website are not fully registered to practise medicine in New Zealand and have not arrived in the country.

The Medical Council wants Auckland's new community pathology service to amend its website to reflect their current registration status.

Owned by Australian company Healthscope, Labtests has listed brief biographical details of the 19 pathologists it has hired in addition to its medical director, Dr Richard Lloydd.

The council's chairman, Professor John Campbell, said the five had applied for registration but had not had their final interview.

I think [Labtests] need to make it quite clear what the status of the people listed on their website is. The sooner that's remedied, the better," he told New Zealand Doctor magazine

Healthscope's chief medical director, Dr Michael Coglin, said last night he would contact Professor Campbell today and if he held the concerns reported, the website would be changed.

But Dr Coglin said the five were on their way to New Zealand, and had to pass only the last step of the registration process.

They had already been given a council registration number.

The biographies do not say the five are not yet working at Labtests.

"If there is ambiguity, we are happy to clarify that," Dr Coglin said.

Labtests is employing fewer staff overall and fewer pathologists than Diagnostic Medlab, the company it is replacing for the district health board-financed community pathology contract, and this has been contrasted to its assertions that service levels will not decrease.

Several of Labtests' pathologists are from Healthscope or another New Zealand company in the group.

Meanwhile, Labtests' problems have led to an increasing number of patients having their blood tests done at other health clinics.

Some GPs, specialists and midwives have turned away from the official, health board-financed provider of blood tests because of long waits for some patients, slow turnaround times on test results and mistakes such as put blood into incorrect tubes.

They hope this action will only need to be temporary.

Healthscope on Monday installed its own chiefs to directly run the subsidiary. They are being assisted by seven senior district health board staff appointed by the district health boards to take control of safety and quality assurance.

This followed the Health and Disability Commissioner Ron Paterson's receiving 13 complaints about the five-week-old Labtests service and voicing concerns about public safety.

Last week, a primary health organisation offered to pay its contracted general practices in north and north-west Auckland to take patients' blood samples, to relieve the pressure on Labtests.

Later a senior Auckland District Health Board specialist, who requested anonymity, said his concerns about Labtests' performance had led him to advise all his outpatients to be tested by the board's own laboratory for the next few weeks.