PHLS jobs move to NNUH Trust

A total of 60 staff with Norwich’s Public Health Laboratory Service (PHLS) will transfer employment to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital NHS Trust from April 1, 2003.

The former PHLS will become part of NNUH’s Pathology directorate. The reorganisation stems from the creation of the new national Health Protection Agency (HPA). All 60 staff working for PHLS in Norwich will be employed by the NHS trust from April 1 and they will become the trust’s Microbiology department. They will continue to be based at their laboratories on the site of the Norwich Community Hospital (formerly the West Norwich Hospital) on Bowthorpe Road.

PHLS covers clinical and diagnostic bacteriology, virology, serology, food and water microbiology, mycology, parasitology, andrology and mycobacteriology. It provides epidemiological data and helps investigate outbreaks of infectious disease. The department also undertakes work for council environmental heath departments.

Dr Judith Richards, consultant microbiologist and laboratory director, says: “The services we offer will continue very much as normal under the Trust and we will be maintaining an important input into public health, in partnership with the new national Health Protection Agency.

Trust chief executive Stephen Day said: “We are delighted to be welcoming PHLS staff to our trust from the beginning of April. The team in Norwich provides very valuable microbiology services not only for the NHS but for many external groups as well and we are looking forward to them joining us.”