ICSH Guidance on IQC for Blood Cell Counters

The ICSH has published guidance on IQC policy for blood cell counters.  The guidance is free to access from the International Journal of Laboratory Haematology:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ijlh.14212

http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ijlh.14220

UK NEQAS Schedules for 2024/25

PDF copies of exercise schedules have been uploaded and can be accessed in our documents section. You can also use our online schedules list by clicking here.

The online schedules page allows you to view all the exercises along with the opening, closing and reporting dates. You will also be able to filter down and view schedules for individual schemes. Further to this you can view an individualised schedule for your own PRN from that same page as long as you are logged in. To do this click the Login button, login with your PRN, Identity and Password and click the Distribution schedules option from the drop down menu with your initials.

All schedules allow you to export them as PDFs or Excel sheets so you can download and / or print them.

2301ES Survey

Due to a delay with the supply of our ES EQA material we will be distributing the 2301ES survey in April at 23D and not in March as previously planned. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.

If you have any queries or questions, please contact our UK NEQAS Haematology team via email ([email protected]).

UK NEQAS IVDR UPDATE

The European Union In Vitro Diagnostics Regulation [Regulation (EU) 2017/746 (EU IVDR)] was implemented on the 26th of May 2022.  A statement of the application of the IVDR to external quality assessment (EQA) services can be found here.

Changes to scoring for Hb S%

A change has been made to the way the analytical performance score is calculated for the Hb S% parameter.  The analytical performance score is a running score calculated from the deviation index (DI) values from the most recent six specimens for which results have been returned, with the application of a multiplication factor.  The multiplication factor has been reduced from 9 to 8 for Hb S%, effective from 2205AH.  As a result of this change, you may notice a small step-change reduction in your Hb S% performance score.  If you have any questions or concerns about this change, please contact us on +44 (0)1923 587111 or email [email protected].