The Royal College of Pathologist's Pathology Services Team Award Winners 2025

I don’t know if it’s just in cytology or if other disciplines have the same issue, but it seems as if we have always lived under the threat of closure, either due to new technology or consolidation in one form or another, certainly since the start of my career. Following the loss of our cervical screening service in March 2020 along with most of our team, and then going into lock down the following week due to Covid has definitely required a ‘can do, will do’ attitude in the remaining team. Losing an NHS screening service exposed an expensive underfunded diagnostic service but we were lucky to have good clinical and managerial support with the result we maintained 5 trained cytology staff, all with the same drive and commitment to provide an excellent service for our clinicians and patients.

We have worked hard these last 5 years to ensure best practice for all our processes against current standards and our cytology department has now transitioned successfully to ISO 15189:2022. We now have 7 cytology staff providing a diagnostic service for all sample types, a crystal analysis service for the orthopaedic department, a post vasectomy semen analysis (PVSA) service for East, Mid and North Devon, a Biomedical Scientist (BMS) led Rapid on-site evaluation (ROSE) clinic service assisting in 8 clinics a week for Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT), Upper GI Endoscopic Ultrasound (EUS) and Endobronchial ultrasound (EBUS) along with an in-house validated molecular service for our lung cancer patients on cytology fluids.

I am a great believer that training and quality are intertwined. Ensure good training and the quality follows. The team are never complacent and always looking to improve either by extra training, taking on a trial or just trying out something new in the lab. Our trainee is awaiting her IBMS Registration portfolio assessment, our band 5 undertaking the Specialist portfolio, our band 6 staff have specialist portfolios and are either waiting assessment for the post specialist ROSE portfolio or undertaking the Diploma in Expert Practice (DEP) in diagnostic cytology. Our senior already holds the DEP and reports relevant negative cases while I report those positive cases as part of my Advanced Specialist Diploma (ASD) qualification. 

Our BMS led ROSE clinic service allows the team to develop relationships with various clinical teams within the Trust and helps provide an extra dimension to their careers. The staff pre-report their own clinic cases before it is assigned to a relevant pathologist. All non-clinic cases are also pre-screened by the cytology staff on weekly rota and it is this regular screening and exposure to lots of different case types that ensures their ongoing competence and providing them with the confidence for clinic attendance. In our experience staff cannot provide an exemplary clinic service without this element.

Apart from Covid raising the profile of pathology for a short intense time, we all know that pathology usually remains in the background without recognition for what we do, so to be informed that we had been nominated for an RCPath team award was success in itself but actually winning the award was an amazing achievement for the team.

As the award ceremony was mid-week in London it was not possible for the whole team to attend, but as it turned out only 2 members from each team were invited to attend the awards dinner at the Royal College. It was decided that I would attend with Dr Manish Powari, our Respiratory lead pathologist. As it was a black-tie formal affair, I then had a fortnight to source a dress, shoes, bag and more importantly magic pants.

Before I finished work on the Tuesday - as I was travelling to London the next day for the evening award ceremony - the staff made me practice my BAFTA losing face in case we didn’t win (as we still had not been told at this point that we had already won). Anyone who knows me will understand how loudly I can roll my eyes.

It was only on arrival in London when the winning teams had to arrive early for the professional photographs to be taken that I realised we had won. Luckily the weather was beautiful on the day of the ceremony and on arrival at the venue (The Royal College of Pathologists building in East Aldgate) we were whisked to the 6^th floor Terrace (overlooking the Shard) for formal photographs. Celebrations then began with a champagne reception - which was obviously why the photos were taken beforehand – followed by a fabulous dinner.

The awards were presented after the main course. Manish and I were the first team called to the stage to receive our award. More formal photos followed and then thankfully pudding which luckily was a cold dessert (or 3!)

I must admit as a non-medic I was slightly apprehensive about an evening in the company of the good and the great of the College but I needn’t have worried. I had a lovely evening with good company and good conversation with everyone very interested in our ROSE clinics and congratulatory on us winning the award and keeping the flag flying for Cytology.

The award is a really solid chunky piece of glassware but really difficult to photograph. The staff now want to know where to build the trophy cabinet. 

Following on from the winning of the award we are still so grateful for the recognition but we are now back in the real world and dealing with the next big thing – consolidation of pathology services in the Southwest!