Maintenance affecting the pathology service: 10 October, 10pm – midnight

October 6, 2022

Please be aware that essential IT maintenance is taking place on Monday 10 October from 10pm to midnight affecting the pathology service at Sandwell and City.

During the maintenance, Unity will remain fully available; however, from 10pm to midnight on Monday 10 October colleagues will need to revert to requesting microbiology tests and Blood Bank requests on paper forms as well as on Unity.

Paper requests will be required to process pathology samples during the maintenance period and as soon as the maintenance is complete, orders will be booked in electronically and reported through to message centre ready for endorsement. Colleagues can continue to make ICE requests during the downtime but there will be a delay receiving results. 

Urgent results will be phoned to the affected users during the downtime.

The activity will be closely monitored, and desk top alerts will be issued from 8pm advising colleagues of the need to revert to BCP for requesting microbiology tests and Blood Bank requests during the maintenance.

Should you have any further queries then please do call the pathology team on 0121 507 6600 or email on swbh.pathology-it@nhs.net.