Northern Ireland completes nationwide roll-out of Clinisys WinPath

A project to support the transformation of pathology services across Northern Ireland has been completed, with the go-live of a laboratory information management system (LIMS) at the final two health and social care trusts.

Western Health and Social Care Trust and Southern Health and Social Care Trust implemented the Clinisys WinPath LIMS in their microbiology, blood sciences, and blood transfusion services at the end of April 2025.

Jennifer Welsh, senior responsible owner (SRO) of the Northern Ireland Pathology Information Management System (NIPIMS), said that the completion of the roll-out “marks a major milestone in the transformation of pathology services across Northern Ireland”.

“For the first time, every health and social care trust is working from the same modern laboratory system, creating a truly connected service that puts patients first.

“This achievement is the result of exceptional teamwork across trusts, especially our laboratories as well as our partners, and I want to sincerely thank everyone who played a part.

“With this foundation in place, we can now look forward to delivering even greater benefits – from reducing repeat testing to supporting clinicians with faster, more complete information, and eventually enabling innovations like vein-to-vein tracking,” Welsh added.

Western Health and Social Care Trust and Southern Health and Social Care Trust had gone live in cellular pathology at an earlier stage of the CoreLIMS programme to deploy the LIMS to all five territorial trusts and the Northern Ireland Blood Transfusion Service (NIBTS).

Previously, both organisations were using a system developed by the Business Services Organisation (BSO) that was 30 years old and at the end of life.

CoreLIMS was developed by the BSO to support Northern Ireland’s pathology transformation programme, by replacing a mix of in-house and legacy systems with a LIMS designed for modern pathology networks.

Karen Bailey, chief executive at the BSO, said: “For the first time all our trusts are working from a single, modern laboratory information system, a testament to the extraordinary efforts of the teams across every region.”

Clinisys won the contract in October 2021 and the first phase of the project was completed when Belfast Health and Social Care Trust and South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust went live in November 2023.

The second phase was delivered in June 2024, when the NIBTS and cellular pathology services went live, followed by a go-live at Northern Health and Social Care Trust in October 2024.

Karin Jackson, SRO of CoreLIMS and chief executive of NIBTS, said: “The completion of the CoreLIMS roll-out opens the door to future enhancements in how we manage and deliver vital blood components across Northern Ireland.

“We can already see real benefits from this investment with streamlined workflows across all services, including transfusion.

“It has been an impressive achievement, particularly given the complexity of the systems and processes involved.”

The implementations had to be integrated with the encompass system, which went live across Northern Ireland in May 2025 to provide a single, digital health record for every citizen.