HIDDEN away on the first floor of Warrington Hospital is a department which every year completes millions of tests which are key to diagnosing patients.

The pathology laboratories are an area of the Lovely Lane site often unseen by members of the public, who might not give a second thought to where their blood and tissue samples are whisked away to after being taken by nurses.

But the Warrington Guardian has been given a special behind the scenes look at one of the hospital’s most vital internal organs.

Warrington Hospital’s pathology unit is made up of four separate services - biochemistry, microbiology, haematology and histology.

Between them they conduct tests on thousands of blood and tissue samples - from patients within Warrington and Halton hospitals as well as those sent by GP surgeries in the area - every week.

Scientists working in the department help give the information that doctors and nurses use to diagnose all kinds of conditions, from diabetes to cancers and HIV.

At present, 179 members of staff work in the pathology labs at Warrington Hospital with Jeff Green overseeing the four services.

Pathology manager Jeff said: “Around 80 per cent of decisions taken in the hospital are based on pathology, so the work that we do is crucial.

“We do approximately four million tests a year, which is a shed load of work.

“The amount of work we can do is increasing quite a bit, but the volume of tests we’re being asked to do is also increasing a lot as well.”

Hundreds of blood samples are taken by phlebotomists in the hospital every day before being sent to be analysed in biochemistry and haematology.

Meanwhile, microbiologists conduct different tests on patients’ urine and faeces samples while histologists analyse tissues and cells.

Warrington Hospital’s pathology department - which like the hospital itself is open for business all day, every day - is seeing more and more automation all the time, with advancements in technology helping scientists to cope with ever increasing demands.

But many tests are still done by hand using equipment from microscopes and Petri dishes to microtomes.

Jeff added: “The level of automation varies very much between each different department.

“Biochemistry and haematology are very automated now, which has changed over time.

“Many other things are still done by hand with not very much automation.

“But because the demand on the NHS is increasing all the time, we’re also seeing that here.

“This is why we need automation more and more.”