Liverpool Clinical Laboratories (LCL)

Our final LCL Pen Portrait for #NationalPathologyWeek is Charlotte Harborow, Principal Clinical Scientist here at LCL. It has been a great pleasure to share the stories of those who make up LCL during National Pathology Week and we can't wait to be able to produce even more! Charlotte has been with LCL since 2015, and had never even set foot in a hospital laboratory before joining Liverpool Clinical Laboratories. Now, Charlotte can be found dealing with some of the hardest aspects of working in the labs and has developed through LCL to become the professional she is today. Thank you to everyone who shared their story this week👏 Click the article to see Charlotte's story.

This week we were visited by representatives from BioGrad who were taken on tour of LCL by our Managing Director, Andrew Bamber, ahead of a system partnership meeting around joint working, research and innovation🔬 Thank you to those who visited.

Day 4 of #NationalPathologyWeek and today's pen portrait comes from Dr Mark Hopkins, Consultant Clinical Scientist in our Virology department. Pen portraits are a great opportunity for us to showcase the variety of roles that make up Liverpool Clinical Laboratories. It is a chance to see what our staff have achieved since they joined us as well as what led them to their roles. Mark worked delivering pathology services across the UK before joining LCL in in 2006. Click below to find out more about Mark's role and his career journey so far.

Our third LCL Pen Portrait of the week as we celebrate #NationalPathologyWeek is Caitlin Copple, a Trainee Biomedical Scientist in Haematology and Transfusion. Caitlin has been with us since 2022 and worked across many of our sites. In her pen portrait she talks about her journey through Liverpool Clinical Laboratories so far and how important it is to her to be a local woman in the labs. Click the article below to read Caitlin's story.

Our next Pen Portrait in celebration of #NationalPathologyWeek is Julie Karlsen, an Administrative Assistant here at Liverpool Clinical Laboratories. At LCL we have over 600 members of staff, covering lots of different roles. Our admin teams play an important role in supporting our lab staff to deal with the millions of samples that come to us every year🔬 Julie's journey in the NHS begun over 30 years ago and has been with LCL since the formation of Liverpool Clinical Laboratories. Julie talks all about her professional journey, what she gets up to outside of work, and dealing with the condition known as Spina bifida. Click the article below to read Julies story.

To celebrate #NationalPathologyWeek we are speaking to members of the LCL team and getting to know the people behind the lab coats🥼 There are hundreds of staff at LCL, and each one has their own story. Our Pen Portrait features gives us the opportunity to get to know our staff, from why they chose to work for LCL to what they do in their spare time. Today's Pen Portrait is Bethany Fair, an Associate Practitioner from our Histology team. Click the article below to read Bethany's story.

Yesterday we were visited by our final round of colleagues from Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Cancer Support Services. Since August we have been striving to improve working between cancer services and our labs, with the aim of improving patient experience and turn around times. Support workers play a pivotal role in the cancer teams assisting and coordinating patients referred to the Trust on an urgent suspected cancer pathway. Their responsibilities include organising diagnostic investigations, chasing and escalating test results requested by clinicians, and ensuring the correct priority is selected until a cancer diagnosis is either confirmed or ruled out. This was the final visit in a series of visits which aimed to increase the services understanding of laboratory working and the sample journey in our labs at LCL. Thank you to everyone from the Cancer Support Services who has visited over the past few months💙🔬 #LCL #LUHFT

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🔬LCL Technology Spotlight🔬 Liverpool Clinical Laboratories is home to some of the most advanced, high-tech pieces of lab equipment in the UK. Here’s a little bit about our new tech at LCL👇 LCL contains one of the biggest Haematology automated tracks in the North West with Sysmex 9100 analysers and 3x Tosoh G11's. Some interesting information about our Haematology equipment and how it will help improve results in our labs: - The Sysmex 9100 track at our CSSB site is fully automated and has 6 XN Full Blood Count (FBC) analysers and an SP50 slide maker stainer as well as a sample sorter for further offline, manual testing. The track can process up to 600 FBC per hour🩸 - The Sysmex track has been reconfigured and extended to allow the addition of an automated ESR analyser and 3 Tosoh G11 analysers for performing automated HBA1Cs. The addition should dramatically improve turnaround times for HBA1Cs, and will not impede the FBC work throughputs. - The 3 Tosoh G11's alongside Sysmex XN’s, brings haematology and biochemistry together automating the HBA1C sample processing and ultimately improving turnaround times. Blood Science harmonisation brings staff groups together leading to quicker throughput and ultimately a better patient service #Healthcare #HealthcareInnovation #Haematology

🌟CPGC/ NHS CVLP partnership: Celebrating Our First Anniversary! 🌟 One year ago, we were honoured to be nominated as the Cellular Pathology Genomics Centre (CPGC) for our region, marking the beginning of our participation in the ground-breaking NHS cancer vaccine launch pad (CVLP). As part of the BNT122-01 trial for colorectal cancer, we are proud to be at the forefront of innovation in the fight against cancer. How Do Cancer Vaccines Work?💉 Thousands of cancer patients in England are set to gain fast-tracked access to trials of personalised cancer vaccines following the launch of a world-leading NHS trial “matchmaking” service to help find new life-saving treatments. Cancer vaccines are a type of immunotherapy that can assist in educating the immune system about the "look" of cancer cells so that the latter can be identified, eradicated, and reduce the risk of the disease recurring. We look forward to continuing our collaboration with NHS CVLP, both on the current trial and on new ones that have the potential to improve cancer care in the future. #NHS #healthcare #medicine #healthcareinnovation