Home Visit Service

• Patients (or the parent/caregiver of minor patients) must be bedridden or have impaired mobility, mental or physical in nature, and have no support person to provide transport to a collection centre to be eligible for a home visit.  Financial hardship and/or lack or transport are not considered acceptable criteria for a home visit.
• Any requests for home visits must be made by the referring medical practitioner or authorised representative (e.g. Senior Nurse). Requests cannot be made by the patient, their caregiver, or their relatives.
• Bookings are restricted to patients living within a 10km radius of the nearest Awanui Labs collection centre.  In exceptional circumstances and only by mutual agreement this requirement may be waived.
• Any changes to the original request must be communicated to our Home Visit Co-ordinator by the referrer.
• Our Home Visit Co-ordinator must be advised in the first instance if patients circumstances have changed and they will not be home.

Home visits are provided Monday to Friday (excluding public holidays) from 7.30am — 4.00pm. 

It is not possible to arrange a set time for home visits. As these patients are by definition housebound this should not be cause for concern.

We prefer all Home Visit requests to be sent via eclair eordering.

To authorise and request a home visit by Awanui Labs please complete a home visit eclair eorder request.

Or for non eclair e-orders (hard copy request form) please scan and email the request form to wlg.homevisits@awanuilabs.co.nz

If your home visit is required urgently, please follow either of the above processes to generate a request. You can contact the domiciliary co-ordinator to confirm arrangements.

PHONE: (04) 381 5900 (OPTION 3)

• Any requests for home visits must be made by the referring medical practitioner or authorised representative (e.g. Senior Nurse) – Not the patient/caregiver or relative.
• All bookings should be made no later than 4:00pm on the previous business day.  Any visits outside this timeframe should be clinically urgent and requested via phone to our Home Visit Co-ordinator.
• Please ensure that the Home Visit Co-ordinator is provided with any specific details relating to the visit – i.e. With holding of medication for drug levels. 
• Best endeavours will be made to accomodate the individual needs of the patients, however these cannot be guaranteed.
• No long term requests will be accepted, we will only book visits up to a maximum of two weeks in advance after which we would expect the patients need for home visits to be reviewed. 

• If the patient is not home when we call Awanui Labs reserves the right to request the patient to attend one of our collection rooms in the area.
• Patients who no longer meet the eligibility criteria will be discharged from the service after consultation with the referrer.
• Awanui Labs will notify the referring practitioner if the patient is repeatedly not home at the time of the visit or where circumstances have changed enabling the patient to visit a collection centre.
• Awanui Labs will review all regular home visit patients annually.  Eligibility for home visits is assessed to ensure we can provide home visits to those patients with the greatest need.

• Patients must ensure that all pets are restrained and that the phlebotomist can safely gain access to the patient’s home.
• Patients not at home at the time of the visit will be left a calling card and advised to contact the referring practitioner as soon as possible to make alternative arrangements for their testing.
• The home Visit will not proceed if the patient cannot be positively identified by the phlebotomist.

• Rest homes are allocated specific days for visits, any requests outside of these schedules must be confirmed as clinically urgent by the requestor.
• A staff member from the rest home must be available to support the phlebotomist and assist with identification of the patient.  The visit will not proceed if the patient cannot be positively identified by the phlebotomist.