Histopathology
The department provides a comprehensive histology service to the Royal Surrey County (RSCH), Frimley Park (FPH) and Ashford & St.Peters Hospitals (ASPH) as well as to general practitioners, community and out-reach clinics in Central and Northwest Surrey areas. The service includes an extensive range of special techniques including immunohistochemistry, frozen sections, macrosectioning for complex lesions, lymph node recovery by lipid extraction, immunofluorescence, research and development facilities and an expanding molecular biology laboratory. The department provides assessment of melanoma sentinel lymph nodes for St George’s Hospital and SWSH Network.
Laboratories are based at Ashford & St.Peters Hospital, Frimley Park Hospital and The Royal Surrey County Hospital and the opening times are as follows:
Frimley Park Hospital: 08:30 - 17:00
The Royal Surrey County Hospital: 09:00 - 17:30
Ashford & St.Peters Hospital: 08:30 - 17:00
Requests
All specimens should be directed to the Royal Surrey County Hospital or Frimley Park Hospital or Ashford & St.Peters laboratories. Both specimen label and request form must be fully completed. The minimum requirements for completion of the form are:
- Name, sex, DOB and patient identifying numbers.
- Name of sender, ward, department or address of sender.
- Number, nature and site of specimens. Multiple specimens should be separately identified.
- Clinical details, including differential diagnosis (clinical information can strongly influence, if not determine, the histological diagnosis).
- Previous biopsy history, with laboratory numbers.
- The requesting doctor must indicate if the patient is private and sign the request form.
Please supply a contact telephone or pager number to facilitate discussion of the case by the Consultant Pathologist or laboratory staff.