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3 articles
Candida auris preparedness should not begin with a ward outbreak. UK clinical microbiology laboratories need a practical playbook covering identification limits, environmental sampling requests, infection prevention communication and the gap between national guidance and bench reality.
Home-collected samples for STIs, respiratory infections and microbiome testing are moving from novelty to routine in parts of the UK. Laboratories need a disciplined framework for validation, instruction design, transport stability and result follow-up before convenience outruns clinical governance.
England’s wastewater monitoring offers an early, population-level view of respiratory and gastrointestinal pathogens, but it is not a local diagnostic dashboard. As winter 2026/27 begins, the value lies in reading the signal carefully—with the right normalisation, resolution and caveats.