Notice
- Important: This guidance is under active development by NHS England and content may be added or updated on a regular basis.
- This Implementation Guide is currently in Draft and SHOULD NOT be used for development or active implementation without express direction from the NHS England Genomics Unit.
Test Routing
All genomic tests and samples are routed initially to the GLH or to the LGL. The scope of the test routing is from the requestor to the coordinating GLH or processing LGL.
For the management of send aways, the Home GLH or LGL SHALL have the ability to manually select a recipient for the order forwarding (send aways) using the central infrastructure.
The LGL/GLH may be responsible for all stages of the testing, such as prep-work, processing, and reporting tasks. Alternatively, the LGL/GLH may act as the distribution point for test request and samples to be sent either to another GLH for specialist testing, NGIS or in some instances, abroad.
The GLH/LGL also act as the gatekeeper for genomic testing ensuring that only tests which meet the eligibility requirements are accepted and the requester is notified of any rejections. In the event a specialist test is directed to the LGL, there is a requirement for the GLH to be informed of the test.
Once the test and sample requested are aligned at the intended lab, the testing process commences, and further routing may be required at each of the processing stages. Prospectively, organisational boundaries may be crossed multiple times. The output of each task (send/receive update) SHALL provide the ability to update the central infrastructure (indicating if the routing has changed to a different organisation) with the overall status of the test or sample.
There is a dependency on the digitisation of the test directory and the management of configurable routing rules centrally, in order to enable interoperability nationally.