NHS Sees Value in Genomics and Starts Pilot Program to Educate Physicians

It sounds like a small group, but if the study works well, it is slated to be expanded. The House of Lords sees a real need for genetics technologies to be further advanced in healthcare with the NHS and view the the project as a step forward with increasing the quality of healthcare. BD

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – The UK's National Health Service wants to prepare its physicians for the changes that personalized and genomic medicine will bring to the healthcare field and has invested £4.5 million ($7.4 million) in a new pilot program to begin that process.

The goal of the new program is to provide enhanced training in genetic technologies and clinical applications for healthcare scientists working in laboratory genetics.

Set to begin in October, the program will fund 24 pilot training posts for 12 trainee Healthcare Science Practitioners and 12 Healthcare Scientists in Genetics. These trainees will be based in a number of NHS genetics departments throughout England, and they will meet for national training events.

The UK's House of Lords earlier this month released a report stating that the mainstream NHS is "poorly equipped" to meet the "increasing demands" that genetic testing is placing on doctors and nurses, and said that more training in genomic medicine will be vital.