History of Community Laboratory Services

Community laboratory services for metropolitan Auckland are predominantly provided by Diagnostic MedLab a wholly owned subsidiary of Sonic Healthcare Ltd. More information on MedLab and Sonic HealthCare can be found at the following websites:

Diagnostic Medlab Ltd

Sonic Healthcare

There are some tests that Diagnostic MedLab refer on to DHB hospital laboratories often referred to as “send away” tests. Send away tests are those that are infrequently conducted and are sent to another laboratory which has both the equipment and experience in performing the test. However, with new technology community laboratories can now perform many of these tests. Community laboratory provision has not always looked like this.

For many years there were several privately owned laboratories providing service. Diagnostic Laboratories and MedLab were two independent companies that merged in 1999. Up until 2005 Southern Community Laboratories also operated in the metropolitan Auckland region. Southern Community Laboratories stopped operating in metropolitan Auckland when their contract was not renewed in 2005.

Collection of samples for testing occurs at Diagnostic MedLab collection sites, some general practice clinics and in the home for invalid patients. The current collection sites and their location are a result of the merger of Diagnostic Laboratories and MedLab. Maps of all locations can be found at:

Diagnostic Medlab Ltd

The Auckland Regional District Health Boards (Auckland District Health Board, Counties Manukau District Health Board and Waitemata District Health Board) in 2006 tendered community laboratory services. The successful tender LabTests, a wholly owned subsidiary of Healthscope Limited were to start provision of the service in June 2007. More information on Healthscope can be found at:

Healthscope

The decision to award the contract to LabTests was challenged in court and the contract was deemed to be invalid. Consequently, the DHBs negotiated a new contract with Diagnostic MedLab. This contract is currently in place.