The National Quality Assessment Advisory Panels, where we report UK persistent unsatisfactory performing laboratories, are currently suspended. We are liaising with the Royal College of Pathologists centrally via the UK NEQAS Charity Board on this matter. We will manage persistent unsatisfactory performers via the UK NEQAS LI Steering Committee and Specialist Advisory Groups in the interim.

The official RCPath position can be found here

The UK NEQAS position can be found here

If you have any questions, please contact admin@ukneqasli.co.uk

Stuart Scott

Director

We're pleased to announce two new pages on the UK NEQAS LI website to support your participation:

Frequently Asked Questions – Find answers to common queries about our EQA/PT programmes, from registration and sample handling to reporting and troubleshooting.https://www.ukneqasli.co.uk/eqa-pt-programmes/frequently-asked-questions/

Publications – Access our latest guidance documents, technical bulletins, and educational resources in one centralised location.https://www.ukneqasli.co.uk/eqa-pt-programmes/publications/

We hope these resources prove useful. As always, please contact us if you have any questions.

We are pleased to provide you with the 2026/2027 UK NEQAS LI promotional flyers providing you with information on all our current and newly launched programmes. Please follow this link to view the flyers: Click Here

We’re excited to share that new UK guidelines for chimerism testing and monitoring after allogeneic stem cell transplant (HSCT) have just been published in the British Journal of Haematology: Click here

The guidelines bring together best practice recommendations from UK transplant, genomics and cancer genetics experts, including UK NEQAS for Leucocyte Immunophenotyping (UK NEQAS LI), to support consistent, high-quality chimerism testing for patients across the UK. 

We’re particularly proud that UK NEQAS LI clinical scientist Dr Hazel Clouston is a co-author on this work, helping to ensure that the voice of external quality assessment and frontline laboratories is reflected throughout the recommendations. 

Huge congratulations to Dr Andrew Clark and all the guideline authors on this important achievement.

The Association for Clinical Genomic Science (ACGS) have published the ratified Guidelines for the Classification of Oncogenicity of Somatic Variants in Cancer.

The guidelines represent the first standardised UK framework for classifying oncogenicity of somatic variants across haematological malignancies and solid tumours. This points-based classification system addresses existing gaps in current approaches to support consistent, evidence-based interpretation of somatic variants.

These guidelines will help shape the future direction of our Myeloid and Lymphoid Gene Panels programmes.

UK NEQAS LI staff members, Dr Ashley Cartwright and Dr Debbie Travis, contributed to this collaborative development involving stakeholders from across the UK genomics community.

Full guidelines and supplementary materials are available on the ACGS website https://www.acgs.uk.com/quality/best-practice-guidelines/

We are proud to announce that our department has successfully transitioned to the latest ISO 17043:2023 standards for proficiency testing. This achievement represents our commitment to delivering the highest quality proficiency testing services to our participants.

The 2023 update to ISO/IEC 17043 offers on enhanced transparency, better communication, and stronger proficiency testing that directly benefit participants:

Enhanced Transparency: Providers are now required to clearly and explicitly communicate the program's objectives, the methods for determining assigned values, and the performance evaluation criteria giving participants better understanding of how their results will be evaluated.

Harmonized Standards: The 2023 edition of ISO/IEC 17043 include harmonization with ISO/IEC 17025:2017 and ISO 13528:2022, creating more consistent statistical approaches and improved sample characterisation across conformity assessment activities.

Risk-Based Approach: The updated standard implements comprehensive risk management to identify and mitigate potential issues that could affect result validity, ensuring more reliable testing outcomes.

Strengthened Quality Systems: New requirements related to impartiality, risk, and information management were added to the standard, along with enhanced complaint and appeal procedures.

For participants, this means greater confidence in results, clearer communication about testing processes, better support mechanisms, and overall improved reliability of proficiency testing services. The transition ensures that the testing programs you participate in meet the highest current standards for quality and transparency.

We extend our gratitude to our exceptional team whose expertise, dedication, and hard work made this transition possible. 

Resources:

• View our updated certificate
• Download our current testing schedule

Thank you to all our participants for your continued trust in our services

Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, a UKAS accredited proficiency testing provider No. 7804, operating UK NEQAS for Leucocyte Immunophenotyping.

You can find our schedule of accreditation here.

Also a link to the UKAS website can be found here, where you will be able to view and download a PDF of our current accreditation certificate.

UK NEQAS for Leucocyte Immunophenotyping (UK NEQAS LI) now has a Facebook page and a Twitter account. We will be posting important messages to these accounts relating to our schemes so please like or follow us, respectively.

We hope that these feeds will act as a useful educational resource for participants and collaborators alike, collating interesting papers, conference info, videos and news stories in haemato-oncology. As we develop our online presence we hope to publish some of our own educational content. If you have any feedback or ideas as to content you would like us to include, please do not hesitate to get in touch

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