Published: 12th November 2020
Did you know that today – Thursday 12th November – is World Quality Day? World Quality Day shines the spotlight on all the valuable work undertaken by quality professionals across a wide variety of industries and organisations. The theme of this year’s celebration is ‘delivering customer value’.
At SYNLAB Laboratory Services quality underpins everything we do, this blog aims to explain what quality means at SYNLAB Laboratory Services, the importance of quality and the steps SYNLAB Laboratory Services takes to ensure it.
Quality – Quality is the degree of excellence of a product or service. At SYNLAB Laboratory Services we aim to provide an excellent service from beginning to end in order to provide you with reliable results. We do this by working to standard operating procedures to minimise delays and ensure reliability.
UKAS – The United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) is the sole national accreditation body recognised by government to assess, against internationally agreed standards, organisations that provide certification, testing, inspection and calibration services. UKAS accreditation demonstrates a laboratory’s competency in testing to ensure reliability of the analysis results and delivers confidence in the service of the testing laboratory. For more information about the importance of UKAS accreditation visit www.ukas.com.
Accreditation – SYNLAB Laboratory Services maintains an impressive portfolio of accreditation for the wide range of services it provides. In addition to our exhaustive pathology testing portfolio, we maintain a complete Drug and Alcohol screening service that includes a secure Chain of Custody and laboratory confirmation testing. As an approved supplier under RSSB’s RISQS (Railway Industry Supplier Qualification Scheme), SYNLAB Laboratory Services also provide testing to the rail industry.
SYNLAB Laboratory Services is a UKAS accredited testing laboratory No. 2144. Our schedule of accreditation can be viewed here.
As an extension to its ISO/IEC 17025:2017 accreditation for workplace drug and alcohol testing, The company has also successfully maintained its more recent accreditation to the Forensic Regulators Codes of Practice and Conduct which enables the laboratory to conduct testing in relation to section 4 and 5a of the Road Traffic Act (1988) and the various UK Drug Driving Regulations.
The laboratory is also a UKAS accredited medical testing laboratory No. 9301, offering an ever-expanding repertoire of BS EN ISO 15189 accredited pathology tests. Our schedule of accreditation can be viewed here.
Leadership – At SYNLAB Laboratory Services every member of our team is responsible for quality. This starts with the SYNLAB Laboratory Services management and quality team who lead by example – ensuring quality is part of everyday tasks and that there is an ongoing commitment to quality. The importance of quality is instilled on all members of staff who demonstrate their commitment to quality through on-going competency training and continual development.
Improvement – We are continuingly assessing our processes and procedures to ensure that they are of high quality, efficient and add value for our clients. Our team are encouraged to suggest improvements to ensure the continual development of the company, which in turn delivers value for our clients. We also ask for feedback directly from our clients, over the years this feedback has helped SYNLAB Laboratory Services further improve existing services, for example by launching new tests and methods to meet changing market requirements.
Team – SYNLAB Laboratory Services is the preferred choice for many clients based on the quality of our people and the relationships they have built with our team. This extends from our office staff, our staff within the pathology and toxicology laboratories to our Drug and Alcohol Collection Technicians who are trained to collect samples accurately, reliably and sensitively according to an accredited process. We pride ourselves on recruiting and retaining the very best people to deliver a responsive service and timely results.
Yearly – At SYNLAB Laboratory Services our pathology and toxicology laboratories are audited yearly by UKAS, as well as RISQS audits for the railway industry testing, to ensure that the whole organisation is continuing to meet the required quality standards. In addition, we carry out regular internal audits on our processes and procedures and invite qualified external auditors to review and make recommendations. For more information on our Pathology and Drug and Alcohol testing services contact our Customer Service team on 01873 856688 or email [email protected].
