Information about urgent and semi-rapid rare disease genomic testing
The East GLH laboratories aim to report all genomic tests within the NHS England reporting time guidelines
Urgent testing
Urgent rare disease genomic tests are delivered by the NHS Genomics Medicine Service for prenatal testing and specific postnatal clinical Indications, for example - R14 Acutely unwell children with a likely monogenic disorder.
The East GLH will prioritise genomic testing in the following circumstances:
- Diagnostic tests in infants less than 6 months old
- Diagnostic tests for children with deteriorating or progressive disease
- Diagnostic tests for children where their mother is pregnant and a result will impact on management of the pregnancy
- Diagnostic tests where a result will have an impact on planned surgery
- Any test, diagnostic or predictive, where a result will provide an immediate change to urgent treatment and/or clinical management of a patient
If your patient meets one or several of these criteria, please indicate on your test order form that urgent testing is required and provide the reasoning in the space provided on the NHSE WGS test order forms and the East Genomics Rare Disease test order forms. Forms marked as urgent that do not provide a reason will not be prioritised for testing.
To request urgent testing outside the circumstances listed above, or to expedite testing that has already been ordered, please contact your local genomics laboratory.
Semi-Rapid testing
The National Genomic Test Directory for Rare & Inherited Diseases (opens in a new tab) test are usually delivered using trio whole genome sequencing (WGS). In specific circumstances these can be delivered as a singleton whole exome virtual gene panel test to provide a semi-rapid turnaround time for the four clinical indications listed below.
| Clinical Indication ID | Clinical Indication |
|---|---|
| R15 | Clinical Indication Primary immunodeficiency or monogenic inflammatory bowel disease |
| R98 | Clinical Indication Likely inborn error of metabolism |
| R135 | Clinical Indication Paediatric or syndromic cardiomyopathy |
| R257 | Clinical Indication Unexplained young onset end-stage renal disease |
Please check the National Genomic Test Directory for full eligibility criteria. If your patient is eligible for semi-rapid testing, you can find information on how to request and order testing in the document below.