PATHOLOGY staff in Worcestershire have been recognised for their hard work processing and analysing blood samples.

Labs at Worcestershire Royal Hospital, Kidderminster Hospital and Redditch’s Alexandra Hospital

were recently awarded full compliance status with Clinical Pathology Accreditation UK following a detailed inspection.

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust chief executive Penny Venables paid a visit to the teams to thank them for their work, describing pathology as "an essential but unseen hospital service".

"You’re under pressure every day to keep up with an ever increasing number of samples, and regular inspections add to the workload," she said.

“You’ve worked really hard and pulled together as a team to make sure you were ready for the latest inspection and we’re very grateful for all your hard work and commitment.”

More than 200 staff work at the three lab, where they analyse most blood tests and other samples carried out both in hospitals and GP surgeries in the county.

Chief biomedical scientist Gurmit Tamber said: “Our accreditation shows that we are maintaining and delivering a very high quality pathology service in Worcestershire.

"The assessment looks at the whole team and we’re very proud to have achieved this industry standard.”