• The frozen section service is available from Monday to Friday, 8:00 am to 4:00 pm.

• Request for frozen section is made when clinician schedules for surgery in NGEMR. Laboratory Medical Technologist will check schedule for the following work day via OT Status board after 4:00 pm on every day of operation.

• Bookings should be made at least one day in advance. For urgent or ad hoc requests, the surgical team must call the frozen section duty phone to check on a pathologist’s availability.

• For cases anticipated on Saturday, the surgical team must notify the laboratory latest by the Friday preceding the day of surgery.

• For cases anticipated after-hours on weekdays, the surgical team must call the frozen section duty phone by 3:00 pm at the latest.

• Cancellation of booking must be notified immediately.

• If the surgery is delayed beyond the appointment time, the laboratory will attend to the case booked in the next timeslot.

• The surgical team is expected to call the frozen section duty phone to inform the laboratory when surgery commences.

• Laboratory personnel should only accept block bookings of more than one slot upon discussion and agreement with the requesting teams.

• Frozen section duty phone: 8939 5843.

• Training slide - Frozen Section

• The ROSE service is offered from Monday to Friday, 8.30 am to 12.30 pm, 2.00 pm to 4.00 pm. Requests for ROSE support after 4.00 pm will not be accepted.

• ROSE appointments are made at least 1 day in advance via NGEMR. ​

• For urgent or ad hoc (same day) requests, locations should call the FNA duty phone to check on the Cytotechnologist’s availability. Ad hoc ROSE support can be provided if there is sufficient Cytotechnologist staffing. If the ad hoc request is accepted, the requesting location may proceed to schedule the procedure. If the requesting location have trouble with scheduling the procedure, the Laboratory could schedule it into the ‘WH LAB FNA Snapboard’.

• The date, time and location of procedure must be provided at the time of appointment booking.

• Each appointment is scheduled according to the duration of the procedure allocated up to a maximum of 1 hour; appointments from the SOC starts with 30 minutes.

  • If an activation call is received after the scheduled appointment time and there is another pending ROSE request, the cytotechnologist will prioritise the latter and schedule the former in the next available timeslot.

  • Priority is given to a scheduled request over an ad hoc request. The Cytotechnologist will arrange the ad hoc request in the next available timeslot.

  • A maximum of 5 patients at 1 sitting (4 hours) could be supported.

Block booking is only be made upon discussion and agreement with the requesting locations.

• The Cytotechnologist is notified 15 minutes prior to specimen collection by requesting location. It is required for the patient to have arrived, signed the required documents, and given their consent for the FNA at the time of the call.

• If ROSE support is not available, alternate options are listed.

• Clinicians or nurses can contact the AP section if they do not have immediate access to FNA specimen collection materials. These may include:

  • FNA specimen collection kit (4 glass slides, 2 slide mailers of which 1 contains 95% ethanol, 1 ThinPrep™ CytoLyt™ solution)

  • ThinPrep™ CytoLyt™ solution

• Requesting location sends porter to collect FNA specimen collection kit from laboratory to requesting location

• Smears on glass slides and needle rinse in ThinPrep™ CytoLyt™ solution are prepared and ​despat​ched to AP laboratory via porter.

• FNA duty phone: 8939 3477.

• Training slides - FNA Rapid on-site evaluation (ROSE)