United Kingdom National External Quality Assessment Service (UK NEQAS)
UK NEQAS is a charitable consortium of 24 EQA centres, mostly evolved from NHS services in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. UK NEQAS has over 50 years’ experience in EQA and has representation across all pathology disciplines (Immunology and Allergy, Cellular Pathology, Clinical Biochemistry, Haematology, Transfusion and Transplantation, Genetics, Virology and Microbiology).
Working with and within the UK NEQAS consortium strengthens UK NEQAS for H&I in terms of our resources, expertise and brand recognition on a global platform.
UK NEQAS centres work together to resolve common issues, share knowledge and jointly achieve the strategic objectives.
UK NEQAS for H&I has over 40 years of experience at supporting transplant laboratories through the provision of external quality assessment (EQA) schemes. We are operated by Velindre University NHS trust who are UKAS-accredited to ISO 17043:2010 (No. 8351). Our ethos is to assure clinical laboratory test results are accurate, reliable and comparable wherever they are produced to facilitate optimal patient care. We offer a comprehensive range of EQA schemes covering all aspects of H&I services including more specialist services such as platelet immunology, disease association and pharmacogenomics.
Our core value is the improvement of lab performance through education.
The UK NEQAS workforce directly feed into a number of external organisation as well as the central UK NEQAS consortium with representation of a number of UK NEQAS Working Groups including the Marketing and Promotions Group, the Logistics Working Group, the Quality Management Working Group and the UK NEQAS Molecular Forum. Our Deputy Director also maintains a position on the UK NEQAS Executive Board.
Since inception, UK NEQAS centres have provided their services to laboratories on a world-wide basis, ensuring that users of similar assays can access comparative data on the best performance achievable globally. We also work closely with manufacturers and regulatory agencies to alert them to issues and assist in early resolution of problems with assays, analysers and kits.
The UK NEQAS Organisation is a Company Limited by Guarantee (No. 3012351) and a Registered UK Charity (No. 1044013).