Sometimes when you visit your GP, specialist, midwife or other healthcare professional, they will want you to have some tests. These tests may be needed to check that the doctor’s diagnosis of your problem is correct or to check that you don’t have certain serious conditions.
Sometimes the doctor or nurse will take a specimen (or sample) from you and send it to the laboratory for testing, but in other cases you will be referred to the laboratory to have your specimen collected.
The types of specimens taken include blood samples, urine or faeces samples and skin scrapings or swabs from, for example, your throat or ear.