A Southampton hospital trust suspended its patient booking system for routine blood tests due to IT problems. 

University Hospital Southampton had to suspend its self-service booking system for routine and non-urgent blood tests at Southampton General, Lymington and Romsey hospitals. 

It followed IT issues with a new electronic Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) which led to delays in testing turnaround times. 

On Tuesday, the trust said the self-service system was suspended 'for the time being to help manage demand as the hospital continues to work through some remaining issues'.

Patients are still able to access urgent blood test appointments.

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A spokesperson for University Hospital Southampton said: “Throughout the transition period we prioritised urgent test results which were all conducted. We are now receiving urgent, non-urgent and routine test requests from GPs through our laboratories with no backlog.

“However, the transfer to the new system has meant that the results are now available in a different way to how they had been accessed by GPs previously. This has required additional work on the system to be carried out.

“We are working closely with our colleagues in primary care, to support them in using the new system whilst we make further improvements to how results are retrieved.

“The process we have in place for calling GPs if there is a significantly abnormal result has continued throughout this transition period, which is in addition to any notification through the computer system.”

Two Saints worker, Tiffany Williams told the Echo she has been trying to book a blood test for a client for around two months who has been told he needs a test before getting a doctor's appointment. 

But despite three days of trying, she has been unable to make a booking due to the system being down. 

She said: "It is causing him a lot of emotional distress because he doesn't know what is going on. It is essentially making my job a lot harder to do. 

"It's very frustrating. It makes me very disappointed with the current state of the NHS. The whole process is just very broken and very flawed."

The hospital had previously advised GP surgeries to only book in patients for urgent tests but as of July 15, this restriction has been lifted. 

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GPs can now refer patients for urgent, non-urgent and routine blood tests. 

A spokesperson for the hospital trust said the system teething problems were 'being worked through with the system provider to find a resolution as quickly and as safely as possible to minimise further impact on the services being provided'.

They added: "We appreciate the frustration the situation has caused all those who use our blood testing pathology services and we very much appreciate the support and understanding of our patients and our colleagues across the HIOW system.

"Please be assured that we are working hard to return to normal service levels as quickly as possible."

On Thursday afternoon, the trust confirmed it had reinstated self-service appointments.