Housing of drive-through blood testing

July 22, 2020

CUH Outpatients needs some help to find and secure some venues to provide a drive-through blood testing service (Phlebotomy).

Due to Covid-19 measures the capacity of the testing services in primary care/GPs and Addenbrooke’s is very limited and believed to be at around 35 per cent of pre-covid times.

GPs and consultants have done an excellent job over the past four months to embrace remote consultations to protect patients and staff from contracting Covid-19. However, this still requires assessments in form of blood testing, imaging and more.

Over the last few months a significant back lock has built up and patients are now at risk due to delayed assessments.

We believe that to establish a robust health service, which can be provided reasonably stable throughout the ups and downs of a possible second wave, we need to provide a solution which is accessible in a socially distanced fashion by a large proportion of the population for the next 12 months.

Sheffield has introduced a solution housed in two marquises which is best imagined as a two petrol station with five pumps each at which the patient stops with his/her car and has blood taken. They provide 450 tests a day which would help enormously. We are envisaging to be able to provide other types of services as well. The marquee solution would only be feasible in summer months due to weather implications.

We have proceeded with planning this, however, have received quotes for marquises, security fencing and staff well-being (toilets and coffee room in a container) which amount to about £250,000 for three months. The locations have been secured at Madingley Road and Newmarket Park and Ride and we hoped to start in two weeks.

You may imagine that this is not feasible and we believe that we should try another approach, although there is significant urgency.

The options are as follows:

• We find another much cheaper offer for the marquise etc solution.
• We find building structures (ideally two) like empty warehouses with reasonable access to set this up winter-secure. CUH would be happy to pay a suitable rent for the use.

I wonder if you could help us sourcing for either of the options, ideally the latter.

We would very much appreciate your help.

All the best

Christof Kastner
Consultant Urologist
Trust lead Outpatients, CUH