IT glitch sends 200 test results for one patient
Getty ImagesAn IT problem at a hospital pathology department has caused delays for GPs who have been getting "multiple duplicate blood results", medical committees say.
The Kernow Local Medical Committee (LMC) and the Devon Local Medical Committee said medical practices were tackling "an emerging patient safety issue" which caused "enormous workload implications", with up to 200 results received for a single patient.
The IT issues were at the University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust and the LMCs said GPs were doing further checks for patients with multiple results "to ensure nothing clinically significant is missed and any adverse results are prioritised".
The trust apologised for the "unexpected" problem.
Emma Ridgewell-Howard, chief executive of Kernow LMC, said the situation had had created an "enormous," workload for some practices in east Cornwall and west Devon.
She said practices had to prioritise reviewing the duplicate results "by manually looking through each result to ensure that no abnormalities have been missed".
She warned it was likely to cause some disruption to routine work "for an unspecified number of days as capacity is freed up to address this extra workload".
Patients awaiting blood test results would be contacted by their GP practice as soon as possible, health bosses said.
Processing problem
Surgeries were also contacting some patients to rearrange some non-urgent routine appointments and procedures, they added.
The LMCs said if patients did not hear from their GP practice, they should attend as usual and urgent appointments were continuing as normal.
The hospitals trust said the problem arose after its electronic patient record system went live and a message processing problem between systems led to duplicate pathology results being sent from its laboratories.
It said it was working closely with practices and wanted to reassure patients that "this issue originated at UHP and is not the result of any action by GP practices".
