The supply shortage of blood test bottles is a national issue and will affect all health care settings including ours. NHS England have now issued clear guidance to GP Practices which means we will be reducing non-essential (non-clinically urgent) testing until the supply issue has been resolved.
This guidance means currently we will be unable to undertake blood tests for NON-ESSENTIAL screening such as, for example, routine medication reviews, allergies, and vitamin D testing etc. We would like to make it clear that non-essential blood tests are only being deferred until the bottle shortage issue has been resolved.
As we are sure you will appreciate this situation is completely out of our control, but we would reassure patients that any clinically urgent blood tests will still be undertaken.
We will post further updates as and when we receive more information from NHS England.