Labtests takeover to start month early

The start of the transition to a new community laboratory provider in Auckland has been advanced by nearly a month, and broken into three stages.

Labtests, which is setting up a brand new laboratory in converted premises at Mt Wellington, will take over the testing of all samples taken from patients in the Counties Manukau health district on August 10.

Those from the Auckland district will follow on August 24 and Waitemata on September 7. From those dates, Labtests will be responsible for all collection, testing and reporting of community laboratory tests.

Until now, the region's three district health boards had set September 7 as the date for Labtests to take over the testing of samples from some 10,000 patients a day - under a new contract worth around $70 million a year - which is done by Diagnostic Medlab.

The boards and Labtests wanted to avoid the high risks associated with an overnight switch between providers, so the boards imposed a phased transition on DML. They could do this because DML's contract is non-exclusive, unlike the Labtests deal.

"We are co-operating with the high level transition plan that the DHBs have directed us to follow," DML chief executive Dr Arthur Morris said yesterday.

Around 40 of his staff - about 7 per cent - had resigned recently, of whom the majority had gone to Labtests. Their DML work was being covered by strategies like increasing the hours of part-timers. Once the Counties Manukau work was transferred out, the staff involved could cover remaining areas.

Those left at DML without work when the transition finished would receive redundancy pay, Dr Morris said, but while the operation was losing the community contract, it would continue. It was contracted to run the region's tests for the National Cervical Screening Programme and held some private contracts.

He said the DHBs had guaranteed the transition to a new community laboratory contractor would be safe. DML was meeting its contractual obligations to the health boards and its ethical obligations to GPs and their patients.

"If problems arise with this contract, Aucklanders will have to live with the consequences for the next eight to 10 years. We still hold serious concerns as to how this new contract, which is on such a large scale, will succeed," said Dr Morris.