company profile Overview Thistle QA is a South African company which offers an independent quality service to laboratories through External Quality Assessment (EQA) and Proficiency Testing (PT) programmes. History Thistle QA was started by Dr Jim McCulloch in 1989. Initially it supplied one EQA, in General Chemistry, to about forty laboratories in the Johannesburg region but this soon increased to cover almost all testing done in pathology labs. Now the database covers labs in over 60 countries worldwide, through a data share facility with Randox Laboratories in the UK. In addition to pathology labs, many industrial labs take part in PTs, for example forensic and food microbiology labs. Coverage It would be possible to describe Thistle QA merely in terms of figures. For example we have a database of over 6000 participants and most of our data is from overseas, making us a truly international service provider. With 7 international programmes and 16 local ones for pathology, as well as over 20 programmes in other laboratory areas, we have one of the biggest databases in the world. However, we are also truly African and we care about quality. Still based in Johannesburg, we make local expertise available to all our participants through our active advisory and training approach. EQA/PT is a useful way to identify lab analytical problems and we are always willing to support quality improvement in our participating labs in whatever way we can. This could be a simple phone call to discuss quality problems, or a visit to help identify the root cause of the problem. We like to make a difference. Support Participants receive teaching material monthly, to increase the knowledge base and also help gather those necessary CPD points. In addition, a QC Course in available to all Thistle QA customers, as well as regular seminars and workshops held wherever they are needed, and a multi-disciplinary Annual Quality Talk takes place at major centres throughout Southern Africa. Various statistical services are also available, for example we will help with your new instrument evaluations, validations, linearity testing and so on. All this is free to those taking part in Thistle QA programmes. Standards Thistle QA was the first EQA/PT service provider in Africa to be accredited. We achieved the ISO guide 43 accreditation from SANAS in 2000, and followed this up in 2005 by adding accreditation to the European standard, ILAC: G13. Summary With a truly local and yet international service, Thistle QA is there to help you improve the quality of your testing. With electronic results collection, a friendly and professional service, and electronic reports, we offer one of the best services possible. We focus on quality