Quality and accreditation

Accreditation is a formal, third party recognition of competence. For laboratories worldwide, this means compliance to the international standard - ISO 17025.

Accreditation not certification

ISO 17025 contains specific technical requirements for the personnel employed and for the operations carried out. We are directly assessed by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) to confirm demonstration of:

• Competence
• Impartiality
• Consistent Operation of laboratories

We also hold higher-level accreditation to both the DWI’s Drinking Water Testing Specification (DWTS) and the Environment Agency’s MCERTS schemes, which have additional technical requirements.

We currently have around 100 accredited analytical methods and over 500 accredited tests. We continually review and update our systems through continuous improvement and by extensively benchmarking our activities.

Our Accreditation Team

We have an internal team of five independent auditors whose sole remit is to monitor our compliance with accreditation standards. This team conduct over 250 audits per year, covering all aspects of the ISO 17025 quality system.

Proficiency Testing

Proficiency testing schemes are inter-laboratory comparison programs that allows us to monitor and improve the quality of our measurements. They provide an objective assessment of the reliability of data that we produce. We invest over 60 K each year to participate in numerous external schemes, including:

• Food and Environmental Research Agency (FERA)

       LEAP - Waters -  Crypto and chemistry

• UK Health Security Agency 

EQA - Waters - Microbiology

• LGC proficiency testing group

Aquacheck - Waters and effluents chemistry. Taste and odour

Crypts - Regulatory Crypto

QWAS - Surface waters/waste waters/bathing

• LabService Analytica

InterCIND - Dioxins - WHO PCBs

• Charles Rivers Laboratories

LAL PTP - Waters - Endotoxin

• Dwr Cymru Welsh Water

Algae

• Cara Technology

AROXA - Taste and odour