Free Health Testing For Sandwell Residents As Council Partner With Randox Health To Detect Early Warning Signs of Serious Illness
Free Health Testing For Sandwell Residents As Council Partner With Randox Health To Detect Early Warning Signs of Serious Illness
Sandwell Council partners with Randox Health to launch free health checks service
Sandwell Council initiative places prevention at the centre of healthcare
Thousands of eligible Sandwell residents are being offered diagnostic NHS Health Checks to detect any early signs of diabetes, heart and kidney disease and hypertension.
The early identification of individuals with the potential to develop these conditions will enable the NHS to intervene and, in many cases, prevent the onset of potentially life-changing and life-threatening illnesses.
In a pioneering initiative, the Sandwell tests and online self-assessment provision will be provided by a partnership comprising the council’s Healthy Sandwell team, the NHS and diagnostics company Randox Health – whose tests and clinics will be used to facilitate the innovative testing. Tests and clinics will be available for Sandwell residents in both Sandwell and, if convenient, in Birmingham.
The awarding of the contract to Randox Health to provide the tests follows an open tender process by Sandwell Council. The company has demonstrated success in providing 17 million PCR tests to NHS Test and Trace during the Covid-19 pandemic, helping prevent thousands of hospitalisations and deaths in the UK.
Free tests will be offered to Sandwell residents aged between 40 and 74 who have not previously suffered coronary heart disease, strokes, diabetes or kidney disease. Each will, in the next few weeks, begin receiving letters inviting them to the 20-minute NHS check, with branding from Randox, Healthy Sandwell and the NHS. The letter will include a link to the Randox website through which the tests can be booked.
Sandwell residents who have not yet received a GP letter and believe they are eligible can visit the Randox website https://nhshealthcheck.randox.com, take an eligibility check and then book their own appointment.
Tests will be carried out by specially trained staff at a number of community pop-up clinics in locations in Sandwell such as leisure centres and community spaces, aiming to reach those most at risk of having an undiagnosed serious illness.
Tests for Sandwell residents will also be available at Randox Health’s Birmingham Clinic (39-40 High Street, B4 7SL).
Test results will be made available to GPs for inclusion on patient medical records through Health Diagnostics Ltd, a third-party provider. Randox will hold none of the data from the test results.
Not only will the testing programme enable prevention and mitigation through the early identification of serious illness, it will also allow lifestyle modification on issues including smoking, alcohol and weight management.
Councillor Suzanne Hartwell, Sandwell Council’s Cabinet Member for Adults, Social Care & Health, said:
David Ferguson, Chief Operating Officer for Randox Health said:
Editors Notes
1. Sandwell Council
Sandwell Council will participate in the partnership through Healthy Sandwell, which is part of the council’s Public Health team. Healthy Sandwell provides a range of services to support local people to make positive lifestyle changes, such as quitting smoking or losing weight. Further information: https://www.healthysandwell.co.uk/
2. Randox Health
Established in 1982, Randox is the largest healthcare diagnostics company from the UK and Ireland.
Undertaking research, development, manufacture and distribution of innovative laboratory tests and analysers, Randox provides 15% of all worldwide cholesterol tests and 10% of all clinical chemistry tests. More than 5% of the world’s population (over 370 million people) receive medical diagnosis using Randox products each year.
Randox Health focuses on the provision of timely and accurate testing to identify risk to health, improve clinical diagnoses and promote preventative healthcare; aiming to achieve better healthcare outcomes whilst reducing the burden on clinical services.
In early 2020 Randox recognised the threat from COVID-19 and quickly developed a test to accurately identify the virus. Testing at scale commenced within weeks to support the UK’s National Testing Programme and private clients. Randox has processed more than 25 million gold-standard PCR tests for the National Testing Programme and private COVID testing for travel.
Randox Health is clear that better diagnostics are unquestionably critical to future improvements within healthcare and is committed to remaining at the forefront of that field.
Its growing network of High Street clinics now operate in 20 locations around the UK and Ireland, including Birmingham.
The Importance of Diagnostics
Randox was established in 1982 to address the need for accurate and readily available diagnostic tests to improve patient diagnosis. Around 70% of all medical decisions are based on laboratory results, and so, not surprisingly, we believe that earlier, more accurate and more accessible diagnostics are the key to improving global health and saving lives.
And yet, until now, in spite of their contribution to clinical decision making, and the important role they play in patient outcomes, diagnostic tests have only accounted for 2% of the UK’s national health budget.
But things are changing. What was once a little-understood industry, working diligently behind-the-scenes, has quickly become an area of interest and relevance to just about everybody, given the key role the sector has played during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Whilst regrettable that it has taken a pandemic to bring the health diagnostics sector into focus, it is a positive step forward for healthcare that the huge national and international scope of our sector is now rightly acknowledged.
Click the links below to hear from a range of clinicians, pathologists and public officials on the importance of diagnostics, and from our customers on their experience of Randox testing technologies.
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We Are Randox | Staff Newsletter April-June 2019 Edition (Q2)
Staff Newsletter April - June 2019 Edition
We are delighted to be able to share with you the Q2 2019 edition of our We Are Randox staff newsletter!
Click here for a range of company and staff news from April to June 2019 – including photographs from the Randox Health Grand National 2019 and all our staff fundraising for AWARE NI and Mind Your Mood.
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Study by Center for Disease Dynamics finds dramatic rise in global antibiotic consumption
A dramatic increase in global consumption of antibiotics has led public health experts to call for innovative new ways to rein in excessive use of the drugs, following a study by the Centre for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy, in Washington DC.
The study found a 65% rise in worldwide consumption of antibiotics from 2000 to 2015, despite efforts to encourage more prudent use of the drugs. The unrestrained use of antibiotics is the main cause of the increasing appearance of drug-resistant infections, which now kill more than half a million people worldwide. A report in 2014 predicted that the spread of drug resistance could claim millions of lives per year by 2050.
Eili Klein, an author of the study, which was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, criticised the global response to the global antibiotic resistance crisis as “slow and inadequate” and called for a “radical thinking” of antibiotic consumption.
At Randox, our pioneering R&D teams have developed a revolutionary swab test for respiratory infections which will help to reduce the unnecessary prescription of antibiotics. Earlier this year, Public Health England reported that 59% of people who visited their GP with a sore throat were prescribed antibiotics, in spite of only 13% actually needing them.
The new Randox swab test indicates the cause of the infection and whether a patient needs antibiotics or not, by rapidly detecting and identifying the cause of 21 respiratory infections in just 5 hours
The test assists the clinician in prescribing the appropriate antibiotic.
John Lamont, Lead Scientist at Randox Laboratories, said;
“Current diagnostic testing for respiratory infections takes at least 36 hours to confirm the nature of an infection, and they cannot name and categorise infections as bacterial or viral in the way our new respiratory test can.”
This test, if widely adopted, could allow medical practitioners to make the correct treatment choice on the same day as examination and before patients have already begun a precautionary course of inefficient antibiotics. It would also have additional efficiency savings for the NHS, by eliminating the need for lengthy microbiology lab tests and unnecessarily prescribing drugs which are not needed.
This new rapid and accurate test will give clinicians confidence in their diagnosis of respiratory infections and will allow for quicker treatment if necessary, which benefits patient outcomes. By reducing the prescription of unnecessary antibiotics, we can limit their use only for when they are truly needed.
The test is also available as a Randox Health Cough, Cold & Flu offering, and can be carried out by booking an appointment with Randox Health at our clinics in Crumlin, Holywood or London, or by arranging the mobile clinic to visit you at your home or place of work.
Book an appointment with one of our clinics, or arrange the mobile clinic, by phoning 0800 2545 130 or by clicking here.
For further information about the Randox Respiratory Infection Array please contact the Randox PR team by email: randoxpr@randox.com or phone 028 9442 2413
