Programme objective: This programme is designed to assess the ability of participants to identify cell types in a bone marrow aspirate.
Clinical/scientific background: Bone marrow aspirate morphology is usually carried out to investigate evidence of haematological malignancy. It allows laboratories to look at cells present in the bone marrow and identify any morphological abnormalities or abnormal infiltration. Findings from bone marrow aspirate morphology can be combined with, immunophenotyping, histopathology and genetic results to reach a final confirmatory diagnosis.
Suitability: Participation in this External Quality Assessment (EQA) programme is open to laboratories or individuals with the ability to analyse and report a bone marrow slide.
HMBMAA Individual: This option is for individuals wishing to take part in the programme for their own personal CPD purposes and who are paying for the registration themselves. It is not possible to register for this option in combination with any other programme. The invoicing address should be a personal address, and no purchase order number is required.
HMBMAA Institute Individual: This option is for individuals wishing to take part in the programme for their own personal CPD purposes, but their institute is funding their participation. It is not possible to register for this option in combination with any other programme. The invoicing address should be that of the institute finance department and a purchase order number is required.
HMBMAA 1-5 user license
HMBMAA 6-10 user license
HMBMAA 11-20 user license
These options are available for institutes who wish to enrol multiple people from their laboratory in the HMBMAA programme. The main laboratory can be included as one of the ‘users’ but this is not mandatory. Each person for whom a license is purchased will be allocated their own participant number with which to participate, but the institute will be invoiced centrally. NB if the main laboratory is included as a user in the HMBMAA programme it will be added to their general laboratory registration, a new participant number will not be issued in this instance. A ‘supervisor’ contact will also be added to the institute lab which will receive separate participant hub log in details. This will allow them to access functionality that will allow them to maintain the users within the license themselves (Add/Remove users from the license). If required, and on request only, we can also use this functionality to provide details of lab participation to the ‘supervisor’ including trial issues and confirming if results have been returned for each participant number associated with the license – please enquire about this service.
The invoicing address should be that of the ‘supervisors’ institute finance department and a purchase order number is required. These options can be used in combination with other programmes offered by UK NEQAS LI. Additional license requests over 20 users per laboratory should contact UK NEQAS LI for further assistance.
All EQA programme communications, data entry, and reports will be conducted exclusively in the English language. Participants must ensure proficiency in English to fully engage in the programme.
The programme welcomes participation from diverse sectors including:
Minimum participation level 30, maximum participation level- no limit.
Sample type/distribution: This programme is totally web based and as such no samples are issued. Each trial consists of a digital image and participants will be required to provide assessment of the aspirate, perform a differential and report the blast cell population (total blast cells counted, total nucleated cells counted and blast cell populations size as a percentage), identify pre labelled blood cells and provide details of any further testing required following assessment of the bone marrow aspirate
This programme issues samples a minimum of 2 times per annum and a maximum of three
Trial duration: Trials for this programme are live/open for a minimum of three weeks. Please note trials issued/closing in August or December are extended by one week. An email is sent to supervisors a week before trial closure.
Subcontracted areas: No activities in relation to this EQA programme are subcontracted.
Updates to the programme for current or upcoming year: Each year we quote a minimum and a maximum number of possible trial distributions that will be issued on our website, subject to sample availability.
Historically, we have consistently achieved the maximum number of distributions. In 2025-2026 due to staffing shortage, we are unlikely to hit the maximum number of distributions, as we have in previous years and trials may not be equally distributed throughout the year i.e; bimonthly. We will return to the full trial distribution schedule in 2026-2027. Please accept our apologies for this short-term decrease in our services.
To register for this progamme, please click here.
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