Why We Include Doctor Review With Every Blood Test

Your blood test results arrive. There's a table of numbers, some highlighted in red, a few in green, and a lot of abbreviations you vaguely recognise. Your cholesterol is 5.3 mmol/L — is that good? Your TSH is 3.8 mIU/L — should you be concerned? Your vitamin D is 42 nmol/L — do you need a supplement?

Without context, those numbers are meaningless. And that's exactly why every blood test we provide at PrivateTests includes a review by a registered doctor. Not an algorithm. Not an automated summary. A real doctor who reads your results, considers the clinical picture, and explains what it all means for you.

Numbers Don't Tell the Whole Story

Blood test results are quantitative — they tell you how much of something is in your blood. But medicine is qualitative — what matters is what those numbers mean in the context of your age, sex, symptoms, medications, and medical history.

Consider a simple example. Two patients both have a TSH of 4.0 mIU/L. That's within the reference range of 0.27–4.2 mIU/L. Patient A is a 25-year-old with no symptoms — that result is entirely unremarkable. Patient B is a 55-year-old woman with fatigue, weight gain, and a family history of thyroid disease — that result is clinically significant and may warrant treatment or further investigation.

The number is identical. The clinical interpretation is completely different. No automated report can make that distinction.

What Doctor Review Actually Means

When we say "doctor review," we mean a GMC-registered medical doctor reviews your results personally. Here's what that involves:

• Clinical assessment — the doctor evaluates every marker in the context of your health profile, not just against a reference range
• Pattern recognition — experienced doctors spot combinations of markers that suggest a diagnosis. Low ferritin with high TIBC and low haemoglobin tells a different story than low ferritin alone
• Risk stratification — some results are technically "normal" but carry risk in certain populations. A fasting glucose of 5.8 mmol/L is pre-diabetic — an automated report might simply label it "slightly elevated"
• Actionable recommendations — the doctor provides clear, specific guidance: what to do next, whether to see your GP, whether to retest, and when
• Safety netting — if a result is clinically urgent, the doctor ensures it's flagged immediately rather than sitting in an inbox

This isn't a tick-box exercise. It's a clinical assessment performed by a qualified medical professional who understands that your health is more than a spreadsheet.

How Our Review Process Works

Every set of results that passes through PrivateTests follows the same rigorous process:

1. Sample collection and analysis — your blood is drawn by a qualified phlebotomist and processed in a UKAS-accredited laboratory. The lab performs quality checks and generates your raw results.

2. Doctor assignment — your results are assigned to a GMC-registered doctor for review. Our reviewing doctors have experience across general practice, hospital medicine, and preventive health.

3. Clinical review — the doctor examines every marker, looks at the relationships between them, and considers any health information you provided at booking. They identify anything that requires attention, explanation, or follow-up.

4. Report generation — the doctor writes a personalised commentary explaining your results in plain English. This isn't a template — it's written specifically for you, addressing your individual results and what they mean.

5. Delivery — your full report, including the doctor's commentary and the raw lab data, is delivered through our secure portal. If anything requires urgent attention, we contact you directly.

The entire process — from sample receipt to report delivery — typically completes within 48 hours for standard panels.

What You Receive in Your Report

Your PrivateTests report includes several layers of information:

• Raw results with reference ranges — the laboratory values for every marker tested, alongside the standard reference range
• Visual indicators — clear markers showing which results are within range, borderline, or out of range
• Doctor's commentary — a written explanation of your results in accessible language, highlighting what's noteworthy and why
• Specific recommendations — actionable next steps: lifestyle changes, supplements, GP referral, or retesting timelines
• Context and trends — if you've tested with us before, your doctor can compare results over time and identify trends that a single snapshot would miss

This is fundamentally different from receiving a PDF of numbers with a green/red colour code and no explanation.

Why Some Providers Skip This

Doctor review costs time and money. A GMC-registered doctor reviewing your results takes 10–20 minutes per patient — and that doctor's time must be paid for. Some private blood testing providers choose to skip this step entirely, relying instead on automated reports generated by software.

These automated reports can identify when a number falls outside a reference range. What they cannot do is:

• Recognise that a "normal" result is actually concerning given your specific circumstances
• Identify patterns across multiple markers that suggest a developing condition
• Provide personalised advice that accounts for your medications, lifestyle, or family history
• Exercise clinical judgement about what requires urgent action versus routine monitoring
• Communicate nuance — the difference between "slightly low, probably fine" and "slightly low, needs investigation"

Automated reports give you data. Doctor reviews give you understanding.

Some providers offer doctor review as an expensive add-on — an optional extra that many patients skip to save money. We believe that's backwards. A blood test without interpretation is an incomplete service. That's why doctor review is included in every PrivateTests panel as standard, not as an upsell.

CQC Registration: Why It Matters

PrivateTests is registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the independent regulator of health and social care in England. CQC registration isn't optional for providers delivering regulated clinical activities — and the interpretation of diagnostic test results by a medical professional is a regulated activity.

What CQC registration means for you:

• Regulatory oversight — we are inspected and held accountable to national standards for safety, effectiveness, and patient care
• Qualified professionals — all clinical activities are performed by appropriately qualified, registered professionals
• Clinical governance — we maintain robust processes for quality assurance, incident reporting, and continuous improvement
• Patient rights — you have access to a formal complaints process and regulatory protection
• Data security — your health data is handled in accordance with NHS-equivalent information governance standards

Not all private blood testing providers are CQC-registered. Some operate in a grey area, offering "wellness testing" without clinical interpretation to avoid regulatory requirements. If your results are being reviewed by a doctor and clinical recommendations are being made, that's a regulated activity — and the provider should be registered.

Before booking a private blood test with any provider, check their CQC registration status. It's publicly searchable on the CQC website. If a provider isn't registered but is offering medical interpretation of results, that should raise questions.

The PrivateTests Difference

We built our service around a simple principle: a blood test is only as valuable as the interpretation that accompanies it. Numbers without context create anxiety. Numbers with expert interpretation create clarity.

Every panel we offer — from a basic health check to a comprehensive longevity screen — includes full doctor review at no additional cost. It's not an add-on, a premium tier, or an optional extra. It's part of the service, because we believe it should be.

Your health decisions should be based on understanding, not guesswork. When a doctor reviews your results, you don't just learn what your numbers are — you learn what they mean, what to do about them, and when to test again. That's the difference between information and insight.

We think your blood test results deserve both.

Explore Our Tests

Want to learn more? Browse our range of health tests to find the right one for you.