UK NEQAS Haematology Update Webinars

Sessions will include a keynote morphology session led by Dr Peter Carey and Professor Barbara Bain, and there will be time at the end of each webinar presentation for delegates to participate in an interactive Q&A session with the speakers.

Register for any or all of the webinar sessions! 

Week 1	UK NEQAS Haematology Current Performance and Future Developments
Day/date/time	Thursday 21st October 2021, 14:30-15:30 (UK time)
Speaker(s)	Dr Barbara De la Salle
Booking	Click here to register

Week 2	UK NEQAS Morphology with the Experts
Day/date/time	Thursday 28th October 2021, 14:30-15:30 (UK time)
Guest Speaker(s)	Dr Peter Carey, Professor Barbara Bain, Dr Michelle Brereton and Dr John Burthem
Booking	Click here to register

Week 3	Clinical Application of Advance Automated Counting Parameters
Day/date/time	Thursday 4th November 2021, 14:30-15:30 (UK time)
Guest Speaker(s)	Dr Wayne Thomas
Booking	Click here to register

For further information
Visit: www.ukneqas.org.uk/events
Email: [email protected]

Professor Samuel Machin (1949-2021)

We were saddened by the news of the death of Professor Sam Machin on Saturday October 2^nd.   Sam was chair of the UK NEQAS Haematology Steering Committee from 2006 – 2009 and his support of the Scheme was much valued.  Tributes and thoughts on Professor Machin’s life and contribution can be posted at the following ‘Much Loved’ page, which has been established by his family and friends:

Tribute to Samuel Machin, 1949 - 2021

This site is a tribute to Sam, who sadly passed away on October 2nd 2021 aged 72 years. He is much loved and will always be remembered by everyone who was lucky enough to know him.

UK NEQAS Haematology: 2103ES

We regret that participants registered with the Westergren and Wintrobe methods did not receive their 2103ES samples to schedule. These samples will be distributed to you on the 9th September 21. 

We will be grateful if you could return your results by email to [email protected] using the result sheet here. 

Please remember to include your PRN on the form. Participants in these groups will not be penalised for late return.  

We apologise again for any inconvenience caused, please do not hesitate to contact us should you require further assistance.

UK NEQAS Haematology 2106BF distribution

We regret that several participants have not received their instruction sheet for 2106BF in the latest distribution. Please click here to download a copy for your records. The survey will close on the 16th of September as per the schedule. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. If you have any queries please contact [email protected]

UK NEQAS Haematology 2108NH distribution

We regret that several packages for the 2108NH distribution have been delayed due to an internal administrative oversight.  These packages were dispatched on Friday 20th August and we advise that you allow 4 days for them to arrive.  As a result of this delay, we will not close the distribution for return of results until Wednesday 8th September.  We apologise for this inconvenience.  If you have any queries, please contact [email protected].

Postponement of UK NEQAS BTLP / BBTS Annual Meeting

As a result of the on-going Covid-19 pandemic we have made the decision to postpone this year’s Joint UK NEQAS BTLP/BBTS Blood Bank Technology SIG Annual meeting, which was due to be held in November 2021 at the NEC Birmingham.

The new date for the meeting is November 24th 2022 at the Gallery Suite, NEC Birmingham.

Pre-paid places for the 2021 event will automatically be transferred to the 2022 event.

UK NEQAS Webinars on Digital and Interpretive EQA

UK NEQAS is pleased to announce a series of pan-disciplinary webinars every Monday in September 2021 on Digital and Interpretive EQA . The webinars will be free to attend and further details will be made available soon here.

Dates	Time	Location
Every Monday in September	14:00- 15:00(UK)	Zoom

Early 21G Shipment

Due to the resent custom changes as of the 1st July can participants please notify us of any delays in the receipt of your EQA samples by Monday the 12th July 2021

UK NEQAS Services Available List for 2021-2022

UK NEQAS Services Available List 2021-2022

The UK NEQAS Services Available List is a comprehensive directory of all UK NEQAS External Quality Assessment (EQA) / Proficiency Testing (PT) programmes, and is available to view online now. Haematology-related EQA programmes are listed on pages 8-10 of the directory.

Global EQA 

The directory features over 500 different EQA/PT programmes covering over 5,000 unique analytes, ensuring full coverage of all aspects of clinical laboratory testing.

New Developments

The UK NEQAS consortium has developed several new pilot modules and have launched a range of Covid-19 services, including new EQA/PT programmes and educational competency programmes, details of which can be found within the Services Available List.

Cyber attack affecting participants in the Republic of Ireland

We are aware that some participants may have IT access issues relating to a ransomware attack.  UK NEQAS Haematology results will be accepted late without penalty from participants in this region if you are unable to submit by the closing date for any distribution.

UK NEQAS Haematology Update Webinars March 2021

Following the UK NEQAS Haematology webinars held in March 2021, please find below links to the recordings of each webinar:

Week 2 Recording: Troubleshooting Haematology EQA, Tuesday 16 March (click here)

Week 3 Recording: Haemoglobinopathy EQA Cases, Tuesday 23 March (click here)

NRBC into ADLC counting

Matrix J users for the ADLC programme are asked to report a nucleated red blood cell count as part of the April ADLC survey (2102DL). For a copy of the distribution field notice released click here.

2021 Re-Registration

UK NEQAS Haematology:

Re-Registration process is now closed for UK NEQAS Haematology. For queries, please contact [email protected]

UK NEQAS Blood Transfusion Laboratory Practice BTLP:

Re-Registration process is now closed for UK NEQAS Blood Transfusion. For queries, please contact  [email protected].

UK NEQAS Participants' manual

Please click here for the UK NEQAS Haematology Participants’ Manual – Version 11 (February 2021) available to download.

UK NEQAS Newsletter 2021-2022

Please click here for the Haematology Newsletter 2021-2022

Please click here for the BTLP Newsletter 2021-2022

Schedules

UK NEQAS Schedules for 2021/22

PDF copies of exercise schedules have been uploaded and can be accessed in our documents section. You can also use our new online schedules list by clicking here Online schedules.

The online schedules page allows you to view all the exercises along with the opening, closing and reporting dates. You will also be able to filter down and view schedules for individual shcemes. Further to this you can view an individualised schedule for your own PRN from that same page as long as you are logged in. To do this click the Login button, login with your PRN,Identity and Password and click the Distribution schedules option from the drop down menu with your initials.

All schedules allow you to export them as PDFs or Excel sheets so you can download and / or print them.

UK NEQAS BTLP Webinar available online

The recording of our webinar is now available online on our YouTube channel. You can find it by clicking here. We hope to host further webinars in the future, if you have any ideas for topics you’d like to see covered, please email us

2101F delayed 1 day

Due to an unforeseen material processing issue, 2101F has been delayed for 1 day. This affects the dispatch, closing and reporting of the exercise. We have every confidence that the material used will (on this occasion) be valid for an extra day, but we will be performing additional in house testing to ascertain whether this is the case. Please accept our sincere apologies for this delay.

FMH Scheme back up and running

We are pleased to announce that we have been able to obtain sufficient material to run the 2005F (dispatched 15/09/20), and we have been able to fulfil our plan to send three samples on this occasion. You should be able to submit all results via our normal website, please let us know if you have any issues by contacting us by email [email protected].

We hope to repeat this with the next few exercises to catch up with the missed exercises in May and July.
We hope to have the report out in the usual timescale but due to the additional data to process and the need for additional validation, we may be slightly late releasing the report. Please bear with us if this is the case, we want to make sure that reports we send are correct.

Postponement of the UK NEQAS Haematology Annual Participants’ meeting

The Annual Participants’ meeting 2020 was cancelled as a result of the national Covid-19 restrictions and we have taken the difficult decision not to hold a face-to-face meeting in 2021 because of continued uncertainty. We will hold three webinars free-of-charge for participants on March 9, 16 and 23 2021 and plan to offer further online or streamed educational activities in place of the Participants’ Meeting in the Autumn of 2021.

UK NEQAS Covid-19 testing EQA

UK NEQAS offers a range of EQA to support Covid-19 diagnostic and monitoring testing. Click here for more information.

Parasitology Teaching Day

For access to UK NEQAS Parasitology website please click here. If you have any questions, please email us here.

Handling UK NEQAS Haematology and Transfusion specimens during the COVID-19 pandemic

UK NEQAS Haematology and Transfusion specimens are a low risk for Covid-19 infection, compared to clinical samples. We have undertaken a risk assessment and advice on handling our specimens and packages during the pandemic can be found here.

We gave consideration to cancelling and moving the exercise to a different date, however with the rapidly changing situation around COVID-19, it seemed very unlikely that there would be any short-term improvement in access to material.

The data entry pages for the exercise will still have details for both Patients 1 and 2. We have marked all Patient 2 samples as “Unsatisfactory sample quality – Sample not received” so that you can submit results without entering data for Patient 2.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused by this change.