Thistle Qa, Bryanston

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.
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.