Meet Jenny Newton, relief laboratory scientist based at Belmont

The Hawkesbury community will continue to have access to high quality healthcare, with the transition of Hawkesbury District Hospital pathology services to NSW Health Pathology on 14 October 2025.

NSWHP Local Pathol­o­gy Direc­tor for Nepean Blue Moun­tains, Dr James Bran­ley said it was an excit­ing time for staff after many months of detailed planning.

“I’d like to thank every­one involved for the smooth tran­si­tion between the pathol­o­gy ser­vice providers,” Dr Bran­ley said.

“NSW Health Pathol­o­gy is excit­ed be part of the region’s health ser­vices, and we will ensure the con­tin­u­a­tion of a 24-hour, 7‑day ser­vice with a full range of pathol­o­gy test­ing ser­vices,” Dr Bran­ley said.

“This includes on-site core chem­istry, haema­tol­ogy, trans­fu­sion and cen­tral spec­i­men recep­tion, as well as inpa­tient pathol­o­gy and out­pa­tient col­lec­tion services”.

Patients will expe­ri­ence no change to how they cur­rent­ly receive their care or collections.

The pathol­o­gy col­lec­tion ser­vice will main­tain its cur­rent open­ing hours of Mon­day to Fri­day, 8:00am – 4.30pm. Any­one in the com­mu­ni­ty with a pathol­o­gy request form from their GP can use the col­lec­tion ser­vice and all eli­gi­ble tests are bulk billed. NSWHP col­lec­tion staff will also con­tin­ue to ser­vice inpa­tients through­out the hospital.

Spe­cialised ser­vices will be pro­vid­ed from NSWHP’s Nepean Lab­o­ra­to­ry, which will be the main refer­ral lab­o­ra­to­ry pro­vid­ing sup­port for Hawkes­bury Dis­trict Hospital.

Dr Bran­ley said as the pre­ferred provider and com­mis­sion­er of pub­lic pathol­o­gy ser­vices for NSW Health, NSWHP is com­mit­ted to work­ing with Nepean Blue Moun­tains Local Health Dis­trict to ensure local com­mu­ni­ties in the Hawkes­bury con­tin­ue to access high qual­i­ty, effi­cient and reli­able pub­lic pathol­o­gy ser­vices, regard­less of where they live.

“NSWHP is also invest­ing in the lat­est diag­nos­tic tech­nol­o­gy, such as point of care test­ing to sup­port faster urgent test­ing capa­bil­i­ties and the lat­est auto­mat­ed chem­istry analy­sers,” Dr Bran­ley said.

Dr Bran­ley said there will be many ben­e­fits to patients, staff and the local Hawkes­bury com­mu­ni­ty as a result of this transition.

“Clin­i­cians will have access to pathol­o­gy results across the Nepean Blue Moun­tains Local Health Dis­trict, with results avail­able in the elec­tron­ic med­ical record imme­di­ate­ly post val­i­da­tion by the lab­o­ra­to­ry, to sup­port more rapid and con­sis­tent patient diagnosis.

“The tran­si­tion will also align and stan­dard­ise the pro­vi­sion of pathol­o­gy across the four hos­pi­tals in NBMLHD, lead­ing to con­sis­tent clin­i­cal gov­er­nance and patient care, as well as improved vis­i­bil­i­ty of diag­nos­tic pathol­o­gy results,” Dr Bran­ley said.

The Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of Hawkes­bury Dis­trict Hos­pi­tal, Bethany Pade wel­comed NSW Health Pathol­o­gy to the campus.

“Work will soon start on refur­bish­ing the pathol­o­gy col­lec­tion wait­ing area to make it a brighter, more com­fort­able space for patients com­ing in for their pathol­o­gy tests,” Bethany said.

“I’d like to extend a warm wel­come to the NSW Health Pathol­o­gy team. I recog­nise the staff at Hawkes­bury Dis­trict Hos­pi­tal have under­gone and con­tin­ue to expe­ri­ence sig­nif­i­cant changes since the tran­si­tion to NSW Health, and I thank every­one for their ded­i­ca­tion and patience as we work through this tran­si­tion,” Bethany said.

Hawkes­bury Lab­o­ra­to­ry Man­ag­er, Bless­ings Ndlovu is excit­ed to begin a new chap­ter in his career and will lead the new pathol­o­gy team at Hawkes­bury Dis­trict Hos­pi­tal, which will include one Hos­pi­tal Sci­en­tist, eight Tech­ni­cal Offi­cers, and sev­en Tech­ni­cal Assistants/Blood Collectors.

“I am excit­ed for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to lead this new team and ensure the deliv­ery of qual­i­ty, safe and reli­able ser­vices. I look for­ward to get­ting to know every­one at Hawkes­bury and will be focused on train­ing, onboard­ing and sup­port­ing the team.

“There’s a real mix of exist­ing pathol­o­gy staff from the pre­vi­ous pathol­o­gy provider and staff from oth­er NSWHP lab­o­ra­to­ries in the region,” he said.

In July 2024, oper­a­tion of Hawkes­bury Dis­trict Hos­pi­tal (HDH) was trans­ferred from St John of God Hawkes­bury Dis­trict Health Ser­vice to Nepean Blue Moun­tains Local Health Dis­trict (NBMLHD).

Fol­low­ing this change, the pathol­o­gy ser­vices agree­ment with the pre­vi­ous provider, Aus­tralian Clin­i­cal Lab­o­ra­to­ries Pty Ltd (ACL) end­ed on Tues­day 14 Octo­ber 2025.

NSWHP is Australia’s largest provider of pub­lic pathol­o­gy ser­vices, with over 5,000 staff work­ing at more than 60 lab­o­ra­to­ries and 150+ col­lec­tion cen­tres across NSW.