NationWide Laboratory // Additional Services

Environmental Screening

We provide enumeration of Total viable counts (TVC),Enterobacteriaceae, Staphylococcus aureus, yeast, mould, sulphite reducing Clostridia species and Pseudomonas species. This allows a comprehensive assessment of the efficacy of your cleaning protocols.

TVC, Enterobacteriaceae, yeast and mould assessment give a representation of the overall microbial levels present on a surface and in some cases the source of contamination. Assessment of pathogenic and environmentally resistant organisms such as Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas species and sulphite reducing Clostridia species also allows the correct use of disinfectant to be monitored.

Section 4.1 of The Royal college of Veterinary Surgeons Practice Standards Scheme states:

“The premises must be in good decorative order, clean and well maintained so as to create an atmosphere of clinical cleanliness and efficiency. The premises must be free of offensive odours, and be kept in an orderly condition. Cleaning schedules must be produced on a regular basis and be routinely audited.”

Most practices don’t just see regulations but view cleanliness in the eyes of their customers, and strive to employ protocols to ensure hygiene. Even a strict cleaning regime should be backed by regular monitoring to ensure its effectiveness in eradicating potentially harmful pathogens from all vital areas of the clinic.

For example practices who use monitoring as part of their cleaning procedure:-

• 50% of practices exhibited a major bacterial contamination (TVC>100 cfu/area swabbed)
• 14% exhibited minor to major Enterobacteriacae contamination
• 23% exhibited minor to major Pseudominas Contamination

Contact our Poulton laboratory on 01253 899215 to find out more about our Environmental Screening Services.

Foods

This area is still being developed.

We offer a wide range of services to a diverse range of clients.

For information on services available please contact our Poulton laboratory on 01253 899215 and ask for Food Micro.

External Quality Assessment

External Quality Assessment (EQA) is required of all RCVS Practice Standards Scheme participants, who are or aim to be General Practice status and above, although anyone who runs in-clinic instrumentation should use EQA as a means of ensuring the quality of in-clinic analyser results.

The NationWide Laboratory Services EQA scheme is a simple, reliable and cost-effective means of assuring this quality in your practice and will generate a report showing how your results compare to those from other analysers and the referral laboratory. NationWide Laboratory Services EQA scheme includes participants using several analyser brands. This ensures that equipment and reagent problems that uniformly affect a single brand will be identified. EQA schemes which include only a single brand of analyser will fail to detect brand specific problems.

EQA is not a substitute for good in-clinic quality control (QC) which should be performed at a frequency determined by case load, that is, the number of patient recalls required in the event of a QC failure.

Section 7.5 of The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons Practice Standards Scheme states:

“In addition to internal QC procedures, quality assurance by reference of internal samples to external laboratories or internal analysis of external samples must be routinely undertaken and results documented”.

NationWide Laboratory Services operate an independent National EQA scheme for all practices and for a wide range of analytical equipment brands. This scheme enables a monthly assessment of your practice analyser.

Biochemistry

A liquid sample sent by next-day delivery for the assessment of: ALB, ALKP, ALT, AMYL, BUN, Ca, CHOL, CREA, GLU, PHOS, TBIL, TP, Na, K, Cl, T4

The material used may be either commercial control materials or pooled surplus patient sera, or a combination of these two. Species of origin will vary.

Haematology

Every month the registered clinic will submit a sample of EDTA blood (for which they have already generated haematology results) to Dechra Laboratory Services by mail or courier. It will be assessed at the laboratory for the following parameters: RBCC, Hct, MCV, WBCC, Absolute Neutrophils, Lymphocytes and Monocyte counts.

The results will be compared your own and submitted back to you.

Data Processing and Reporting

Monthly reports will be generated from the data submitted and provided to individual participants or group practice headquarters. For each analyte, reports will include group mean and standard deviations along with Z-score and interpretation (e.g.: “pass”/ “fail”) for individual participants where appropriate.

Benefits

• Compliance with RCVS practice standards scheme.
• Assurance that internally generated results are of sufficient quality for clinical decision making.
• Ensure the consistency of your results over time.
• Comparing the quality of your analyser against others across the UK using an independent unbiased laboratory.