Wessex Genomics Laboratory Service

WGLS Monthly Newsletter

There is now more than ever a need to

January 2024 start work on a strategic direction and
vision for the service, aligned with GLH
strategy; work on which will start in
We are in a new year, and this is the year April, which will involve all us to form
where we are planning to have a number and drive this. We are so fortunate to
of the outstanding workstreams completed have so many skilled, talented,
and to answer some of the questions that passionate, collaborative, and patient
people have about the current service. centered colleagues. Our ambition is
What have we These include some of the big questions
around the agreements in the Business
that all in our team are working in an
enjoyable environment, where you feel
been up to in Case that both UHS and SFT approved in
August 2022. We have been working
valued and motivated and can flourish.
It is particularly saddening to hear that
January? towards being able to give people more
certainty around the proposed one site
some of us are currently feeling so
unhappy. It has been difficult to see
model and crucially what this timescale tangible day to day benefits of
 Recruitment control impact
might look like. We are aware this is becoming one service. We plan that
assessments and information
causing a lot of uncertainty and has together we can make a difference to
gathering
contributed towards reasons that people this, it’s not an easy task and does need
 Capital equipment procurement have given in their exit interviews when all the expertise, knowledge and good
they have sadly chosen not to continue ideas that we have within our team. It’s
 Budget Setting for 2024/25 working with us. a difficult time to make some headspace
 Health roster audit/review and free up physical time to focus on
moving forward whilst we have the
 NHSP payments-finally! One of the first priorities before the end of
number of vacancies and the workload
March is to have a clear idea of the senior
 WPE LIMS go live planning (new pressures so we don’t underestimate the
management structure for a one site
date 7Th May 2024) task ahead. Chrisy, Nic and Linda
option, and what the current two site
model of working should look like for a
service as complex and diverse as ours in
I wanted to thank everyone who has
WGLS. This is an important step which
taken the time out to meet with me so
will offer more certainty and help to
Welcome to inform the structures, roles and
responsibilities for the whole team. We
far, it’s been a very useful use of time
for me to get your feedback directly and
I wanted to thank everyone for their
New Starters! want to reassure people that although we
are talking about structure, there is no
honest and understandable feedback.
This will be collated as part of the
Sarada Kolli intention for a restructuring for any roles
action plan from the “listening“
underneath the senior management team.
sessions that have been held over both
Eleanor Barber Also no roles will be down banded and
sites. Linda
there is no plan for anyone to have to
Samuel Akor apply for their own roles.
 Rebecca Bastock
Any updates to share or
What do you want questions you want
Upcoming to see here? answered? We can share in
the newsletter
Events Email charlotte.beard@uhs.nhs.uk

Whole Team Meeting

(TEAMS)-
7th February 2024 1400-1500
Send agenda items to Charlotte
 WGLS News

All current live adverts have been
extended until 31/01/24. All
appointed new starters (internal and
external) without unconditional
offers have been paused for start
dates, all fixed term contracts have
been reviewed, no new adverts are
being placed, all posts previously
appointed to. They are working on
posts that are already at recruitment
first.
The message from them is clear that
this isn’t a recruitment freeze but an
implementation of additional

Recruitment
agreed (including those appointed controls.
to) are being re-reviewed.

Updates We have been feeding information

Additional controls have been put in place
on all recruitment processes at UHS since
the beginning of January as part of
financial control measures. For us this has
meant that-
to the Divisional Management Team
(DMT) who are then tasked
with prioritizing posts to be
But I know this is a big blow to so
many of us expecting new starters in
the coming months, we will get new
starters but there will be delays. We
are being supported in having our
genomic posts prioritized. We will
keep you all updated.

Operational Capital Equipment Procurement

updates
Annual leave carry-over
Carry over process will start at the end of
March, more info by email.
We will be able to carry over 5 days pro
rata but please book where possible;
Remember Good Friday is 29th March.
Annual leave selling will occur April/Nov
2024.(5 days pro rata).
Health roster reviews ongoing on
Salisbury roster.
Quality
We are in the process of purchasing:
ABI 3500, Qiacube, Tube Picker, -
80 Freezers, BioRad QX200,
Centrifuge, Cell Counter, BI
servers.
Listening Events Feedback
Laboratory
Sarah C and Charlotte have been Developments
busy with the additional recruitment
control work. We are still working Genexus
Steve and David working closely
on the action log from your
suggestions and will feed back in with team to set a go live date.
the next few weeks. More listening
sessions to follow.
De-duplication of
WGLS tests
Joining forces in Wessex means
we can deduplicate tests that are
done in both labs. Jen Stevens and
IT Updates Laura Chiecchio have been
WinPath Enterprise (WPE) LIMS working together (with help from
new go live date 7th May 2024. This many others) to de-duplicate
is a huge pathology wide/network
wide project so support for the
JAK2 and BCR-ABL tests in
some clinical indications,

Management whole pathology team will ramp up

Pathology are pausing non-essential
quality tasks and meetings. This is so the
quality (including Beth) can support with
the implementation of WPE LIMS. So
there may be less support from Beth over
the next few months but we will update
with specifics.
over the next few weeks/months.
Once this project is complete the
next for us at WGLS will be the
UHS IT migration project to solve
access issues to UHS emails and
systems (planned for October
2024) and integration of Starlims
hopefully starting Feb ’24, comms
will follow to individual teams on
how this will work in the labs.
We are also working on de-
duplicating HFE testing, more
info to follow.
with WPE.