Before the lab: where NHS diagnostics really goes wrong 

Traditionally, diagnostic quality is measured inside the laboratory: analyser performance, turnaround times, and accreditation. Yet the part of the journey nobody audits, the pre-analytical phase accounts for over 70% of diagnostic errors.

Between paper requests, samples with unverified transit times or temperatures, and the risk of Wrong Blood in a Tube (WBIT), operational flaws directly impact the patient. As care shifts into the community (Neighbourhood Health), addressing what happens before the tube reaches the analyser is the real priority set out by GIRFT.

At Salutare, we are focused on closing this gap through digitalisation, point-of-care verification, and end-to-end specimen tracking.