A National Stocktake of all medical genetic and genomic testing of patient samples during the 2016/17 financial year has been commissioned by the Australian Government Department of Health on behalf of the Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council.
The purpose of the Stocktake is to provide information about local genetic/genomic testing services currently available to Australian patients for disease diagnosis, monitoring, treatment, disease prevention, prediction or predisposition assessment.
Having successfully led similar stocktaking surveys in 2006 and 2011, the RCPA will conduct the Stocktake, with oversight provided by a Department of Health-led Technical Working Group and an RCPA Project Steering Committee.
A final report of key findings, including comparisons with the earlier survey results, will be provided to the Commonwealth Department of Health in June 2018.
Aided by the overseeing groups, NATA and RCPAQAP the RCPA’s project team has identified up to 90 Australian laboratories known to be offering genetic/ genomic testing services from either the public, private or academic sectors.
A Survey Tool based on the 2011 Survey Instrument has been developed and is about to be piloted by a small group of service providers representing all sectors. The Stocktaking Survey will be open to all Laboratories for an eight week period commencing in mid-February and ending in mid-April.
Project team members will be contacting Heads of all identified Laboratories over the next few weeks. In the meanwhile, enquiries about the Stocktake can be directed towards the members of the Project Team, who are Ms Vanessa White (vanessaw@rcpa.edu.au), Prof David Ravine (david.ravine@uwa.edu.au) and Dr Sarah Nickerson (sarah.nickerson@health.wa.gov.au).
