Following a routine quarterly review at their Coventry site, ALS Environmental are proud to report that the precision and bias data for Analytical Quality Control (AQC) for the last quarter (April to June 2014) shows that over 99% of tests were within targets. This data comprises all internal quality control samples which totals over 1,000 AQC charts.

ALS Environmental are pleased to announce that we have today (Monday 1st September ) launched our portfolio of drop-off locations across the length and breadth of the UK. We have designed these locations to be easily accessible and in population centres.

The 11 drop-off locations will all be collected by our internal refrigerated collection vehicles after 18:00 Monday to Friday. All samples will be at the laboratory of analysis for the analysts to commence testing by the early hours of the following day.

The threat of nosocomial infection is ever increasing, with a high emphasis on Legionella, but this is not the only bacteria in the water system that infection control are concerned with. The ESKAPE pathogens are of particular concern to healthcare and care home properties due to the antibiotic resistant nature of the bacteria.

Since the Spring release of the United Kingdom Accreditation Services (UKAS) document 'Guidance on Water Matrices Definitions for Sampling and Testing to ISO/IEC 17025', which defines standard Water Matrix types, ALS Environmental have been working to towards this standard nomenclature in their systems to mirror the guidance.

In order to fully utilise the updated matrix guidance ALS Environmental has mirrored the UKAS descriptors with their Water Sample Matrices. Since the guidance was released in June 2014, they have been working with their customers to supply the information in line with the UKAS guidance and over 90% of samples now comply with this request.