About Us
NHS Pathology for the Black Country in the West Midlands
BCPS offers comprehensive NHS services to the Black Country from our sites in
Birmingham, West Bromwich, Dudley, Walsall and Wolverhampton. We also offer
specialist services to other laboratories around the United Kingdom and the World.
Vitamin D Analysis
We use LC-MS/MS technology to produce high quality results for vitamin D analysis.
While closely aligned to serum results also produced by LC-MS/MS, our results will not
always compare with local laboratory methods, some of which are meant to give a
‘screening’ result. For example, methods using immunoassay techniques may give
different results. We use quality systems to ensure our blood spot results align closely
with our venous blood vitamin D service, for which we are one of the largest providers in
the UK.
Your Results
We send your results to the email address that is provided on the consent form. Your
results are clearly shown along with reference intervals and your status. We also use a
simple ‘traffic light’ system so that you can visually compare your results to the NHS
guideline ranges.
Understanding your results
•
We encourage you to take your results to your local pharmacist or nutritionist for
further advice on supplementation if indicated.
•
Lab tests online is an excellent website to understand more about vitamin D levels -
see here…..
•
NHS Choices also offer advice on Vitamin D - see here….
Vitamin D Research in our laboratory
Vitamin D levels in our Birmingham population in 2006
Our NHS laboratory has had a specialist Vitamin laboratory since the 1990s, when
it came to be part of Pathology at the world famous Dudley Road Hospital, as part
of the move of Birmingham Eye
Hospital from the city centre.
We have been involved with many
research projects looking at Vitamin D
over the years both in the UK and
around the world. An important
publication from 2006, particularly
topical at present, is our study showing
pronounced differences in Vitamin D
deficiency in different parts of our
diverse population. Download the full
paper here…..
Self-administration of vitamin D
supplements in the general public
We investigated unexpectedly high
results for vitamin D discovered in
some of the general public who used
our service over the period 2013-2015.
This paper also presents data comparing the blood spot method with the
conventional serum vitamin D analysis,
showing a very close relationship. A key
part of our Quality Control is to ensure
this relationship is maintained.
The paper’s conclusions includes a
warning that clinicians should be aware
patients may be self-administering very
high concentrations of vitamin D,
especially when investigating
unexplained hypercalcaemia. Full paper
to download here….
BCPS-V. 2020/18/2
Last Updated: 19th April 2024
Review Date: 19th April 2026
Our Address: Clinical Biochemistry Department, Black Country Pathology Services, City Hospital Birmingham, B18 7QH, UK
This service to the public is provided from the SWBH NHS Trust laboratories part of BCPS. Our work is overseen by the governance policies,
procedures and quality system applying to BCPS. Please contact us if you would like further details in this area.
Note: Birmingham Picture Library receives orders and forwards them to the laboratory and is the organisation appearing on
your bank statement.
Queries are handled by the laboratory once orders are received.