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Complete Article from Edition 47 APG eNewsletter
Lake Mary, FL - - September 21, 2006 - - The leadership of the National Cooperation for Laboratory Accreditation (NACLA) has taken two important steps following its decision to eliminate the NACLA mutual recognition arrangement (MRA): First, it has re-instated two major accreditation bodies (ABs) on the list of NACLA-recognized ABs, and second, it has revised the compostion of its Acceptance Panel.
The re-instated ABs are IAS (International Accreditation Service) and NVLAP (National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program). Both had voluntarily withdrawn from the NACLA MRA, which necessitated their removal from the NACLA recognition roster. As in the past, NACLA continues to grant recognition solely on the basis of an AB’s demonstrated competence that it is in compliance with both NACLA requirements and accepted international standards (ISO/IEC 17011 and 17025). The competence of these two ABs was has been amply demonstrated through NACLA evaluations, so their recognition has been restored.
With these re-instatements, there are now seven ABs that are recognized by NACLA. The recognition roster will be found on NACLA’s website, www.nacla.net.
“It is important for all NACLA stakeholders to understand that the elimination of the NACLA MRA in no way diminishes the technical rigor or international validity of NACLA’s evaluation process,” according to Dr. William J. Tilstone, NACLA’s President. “The standard of competence that has been used in NACLA’s evaluation program from the start will still be applied. The main difference from our previous MRA-driven system is the lack of a requirement that the AB, once its competence has been ascertained, will no longer be asked to sign a NACLA MRA.”
The second change occasioned by the elimination of the NACLA MRA is a restructuring of the Acceptance Panel to increase the proportion of government and industry representatives on the Panel. This change increases the involvement of specifers and users of accredited laboratory results in the recognition process.
“At the end of the day, the clients for laboratory data are government agencies and private-sector companies,” Dr. Tilstone said. “It is appropriate, therefore, that representatives of these organizations should have the primary role in deciding which ABs merit recognition.”
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