Important Notification:
The current Joint Working Group Conditions of Participation have a Return Rate criterion set at 75%. I believe that this is to be tightened to 100% for ALL Schemes from ALL providers (not just UK NEQAS Schemes) as part of the new Joint Working Group conditions of Participation. The National Quality Assurance Advisory Panel (NQAAP) for Chemical Pathology endorses this change. I am now intending to roll this out for all our Schemes with effect from 1st April 2011.
This means that every laboratory must submit a ‘return’ for every Distribution. Even if it is not possible to submit any results for a Distribution, you must provide an explanation as to why this was not possible:
- In the "enter comments" field at the bottom of the ‘result entry screen’.
- In the "Method Changers/Comments" box if returning a paper report form.
To help laboratories achieve this, we will be sending out email reminders to those laboratories that haven’t entered any results a few days before the closing date. I know my administrator has been doing this for some time prior to this change endorsed by the NQAAP.
As a consequence of this, from 1 April 2011, I will be contacting any UK participant who fails to return results or to provide an explanation.
Alan Reid
Scheme Organiser