|
Introduction |
· 10 year anniversary · CPA Annual Conference 2002 |
We are
commissioning a new telephone system in CPA Central Office. The work
will be undertaken on Friday 14 December 2001and there may be some disruption to
service that day.
If you have difficulty contacting us the mobile telephones will be
switched on during that day.
Please bear with us. Mobile
Telephones:
07901 914246 and 07798 504310 The
new system will be operational with effect from: Monday 17 December 2001 The
new numbers will be: Tel:
0114 251 5800 Fax: 0114 251 5801 |
CPA
(EQA) in
California
|
On
a grey Saturday in March, Mike Wheeler, David Edgar and Martin Nicholson set off
for the wilds of Los Angeles.
The message had come through - go and inspect BioRad!
Having bought Murex, the company decided they wanted to be accredited by
CPA (EQA). The
inspectors compared notes, extracted key points from the data and made important
decisions - did BioRad really mean we weren't going to be met at the airport but
would supply a hire car?
In which case what shall we do on Sunday as the inspection isn't until
Monday? Several
hours later with no reception committee at the airport it was off to the car
hire company. This
was when Mike discovered team leader meant taxi driver as neither of his other
two co- inspectors had their driving licences with them - Mike goes nowhere
without his driving licence, laptop and Swiss army knife.
With David driving shotgun (and as navigator) the President of the IBMS
rode in state at the back, where I guess all presidents should ride, we headed
south to find our hotel. Sunday
was spent on important activities such as visiting the Queen Mary, Hollywood,
Sunset Boulevard, the odd beach for Martin (but the weather was grim) and of
course finding out where BioRad was so that we could look very efficient by
turning up on time. When we arrived (on time) on Monday it was soon apparent |
that
this was going to be very, very different from the usual CPA (EQA) inspection.
Our initial welcome meeting was with fifteen key managers headed by Robyn
Hawkins, the Divisional Manager.
Yvette Lloyd was the organiser of our visit and acted as our guide for
the rest of the time.
The following walk around the site soon showed that everything was
several magnitudes larger than anything else we had encountered; there were
about sixty people in manufacturing alone.
Activities were compartmentalised so that Manufacturing, where the EQA
material was prepared, was a large area separated off from other areas.
Other areas of activity included Business Development, Software
Development, Purchasing, QA, Accounting, Human Resources and R&D.
Because the BioRad QA material is also manufactured on the site it took a
little time for us to understand fully how the EQA activities fitted in to the
whole and which people were responsible for which activities.
We were impressed with their documentation, fascinated by the control of
processes and drooled over the software for recording customer communications.
We were particularly interested to hear that staff do not have contracts
as California is an 'at will state' i.e. people can be hired and fired at will! I guess both parties were a little tense. It must have been difficult for the staff of BioRad to have three inspectors (or auditors as |
they
called us) from the UK and we were very sensitive to their commercialisation and
the fact that the company might want to keep a number of things confidential.
Nevertheless it didn't stop us asking a lot of questions and we were very
grateful for the patience and openness of the BioRad staff.
It wasn't always easy applying CPA (EQA) standards to a commercial
activity and it took several cold beers to sort out some issues.
We had a very pleasant dinner with our hosts on Monday evening but we
were back bright and bushy tailed on Tuesday to fill in the gaps and cross the
t's. We hope that BioRad felt that the inspection had been helpful; we had certainly learnt a lot. We also hope that we didn't offend anyone with our questions or comments. BioRad had already addressed a number of issues raised by the CPA (EQA) standards and already had plans for several roadshows or participant meetings. You might give a thought to our poor colleagues who have to go to LA for the steering committee meetings - it’s a hard life being a clinical scientist. And so we just had time to rush off and carry out that all important chore of buying presents in the Mall for our loved ones. As Mike and Martin went to find another beer in the airport lounge David drove off into the sunset - minus a driving licence. Mike Wheeler |
10
YEAR
ANNIVERSARY
|
It does not seem long ago (in fact it was October 1990) that I was sitting opposite George Pennington, John Lilleyman and Keith Lockyer (at the time he was Secretary of the Royal College of Pathologists) being interviewed for the post of Project Manager for the UK accreditation initiative. Keith told me some years later that I was given the job because my perfume was nice. I started on 1 January 1991 and during that year we conducted the pilot studies in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. |
In the September we hosted a one day conference on accreditation and at the end of the year we organised the first inspector training. In this newsletter we are advertising our tenth annual conference and the pilot inspections for the new standards have been arranged for the first quarter of next year in preparation for the introduction of the standards in April 2003. Toward the close of 1991, not knowing how or whether the accreditation process would grab the attention of the pathologists and senior scientists in the country, it was difficult to know how many staff would be needed to support the Central Office. |
Being very cautious we decided to advertise for a part-time member of staff to join me and Susan Allison was our first recruit. She started on the day the company was inaugurated, 6 January 1992, and is thankfully still with CPA today. Currently there are twelve members of staff in CPA office, shortly to be increased to sixteen. As we are approaching the tenth anniversary of CPA, I should like to take this opportunity to thank all those individuals who have worked so tirelessly and professionally to support the accreditation process in the United Kingdom. We have come a long way, doesn’t time fly when you’re enjoying yourself. Happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year. Cheryl Blair |
|
|
PLEASE NOTE: CPA Central Office will be closed on: Christmas Day Monday 31 December 2001. |
Second Notice
|