Senior lab teams operating under significant, increasingly acute, pressures view acceleration in automation as key to the future, research has found.
Forty senior people working across UK labs were surveyed by Automata on their current challenges and views.
The poll found that automation is seen as a solution to relieve existing pressures, improve day-to-day capacity and turnaround time, reduce human error and ultimately enhance patient outcomes.
Lab managers feel their sector is operating under significant strain, with staff shortages, time pressures and ability to meet current demands all identified as pressing issues by respondents.
This comes after concerns were raised around the impact of the underfunding of NHS pathology labs and, last month, the government committed £250m to modernising diagnostics and addressing pressures.
With winter and Covid-19 NHS diagnostic pressures front of mind, this new research highlights the value automation offers pressurised diagnostic and pathology staff to improve capacity and patient care, whilst giving them more time to be innovative in their work.
Mostafa ElSayed, Automata’s CEO and co-founder said: “Our research highlights the significant and sustained pressures faced by UK lab managers, many of whom carry out work for the NHS, and in pathology and diagnostic labs.
“It is concerning that respondents so unanimously feel concerns over staff shortages, time pressures and meeting current demands are experienced acutely across the sector, and in their day-to-day work.
Respondents worked across pathology (60 per cent) and diagnostics (38 per cent), with the vast majority (93 per cent) of those questioned undertaking NHS work.
Ninety-five per cent of those polled said they feel both financial pressures, and exhaustion and staff morale are having an impact too, in addition to human error (65 per cent) and the replication of results (48 per cent).
These concerns are also affecting respondents in their own lab environments, with staff shortages at the front of mind for almost all respondents (95 per cent), alongside meeting current demands (65 per cent) and time pressures (60 per cent) taking a toll in the current pandemic environment.
Unfortunately, most respondents feel these issues are getting worse as demand continues to rise. Respondents felt exhaustion and staff morale (80 per cent), meeting current demands (70 per cent), staff shortages (68 per cent), time pressures (63 per cent) and financial pressures (63 per cent) were getting worse in the sector.
Strikingly, not a single respondent believes time pressures, and staff morale and exhaustion, are improving.
The research underscores the benefit automation offers for increased time to pursue greater creativity and innovation.
97 per cent of lab managers surveyed associate automation with time savings, be that single-station, full-workflow, or both forms.
Seventy-eight per cent of lab managers wished they had more time to be creative at work, and respondents feel full-workflow automation would have a positive impact on their professional wellbeing (58 per cent).
More than half (53 per cent) of respondents added that it would have a positive impact on them feeling excited about their jobs.
Finally, the research highlights the excitement among lab managers that automation can relieve existing pressures, scale-up capacity and allow them to enjoy greater creative freedom in their work.
The majority of lab managers feel that full-workflow automation would have a positive impact on their day-to-day work, for example in improving capacity (93 per cent) and turnaround time (90per cent).
Full workflow automation was also felt to have a positive impact on human error (85 per cent), lab safety (80 per cent) and patient outcomes (68 per cent).
The vast majority of respondents felt that automation offers opportunities to scale up their work (90 per cent) and relieve pressures to meet targets (78 per cent). Only 20 per cent were concerned that automation would result in fewer jobs for lab staff, and most lab managers think that it is feasible to implement single-station or full-workflow automation in their lab.
ElSayed said: “Automata wants to help scientists achieve better results faster with worry-free lab automation that empowers lab managers to achieve more reliable results, save time and enable them to enjoy greater freedom for creativity and innovation.
“So it is reassuring, our research shows lab managers have confidence in automation as a viable and credible solution, to both relieve current pressures, and improve capacity, speed, safety and patient outcomes.”
