ABSTRACT
The Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations 1998 finally made it a statutory requirement for laboratories offering these services to be accredited. There is an exemption for an employer's laboratory, which only needed to have a quality system which complied with the relevant sections of ISO/IEC 17025, and not necessarily to be accredited by UKAS. UKAS is the sole accreditation body in the United Kingdom. It began life within the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) as NAMAS, which itself was an amalgamation of the British Calibration Service (BCS) and the National Testing Laboratory Accreditation Service (NATLAS). RG8 makes it clear that Inspection Body accreditation should not be confused with personnel certification, which is for individuals by a Certification Body. The assessment duties are usually split between them but the presence of the assessment manager is to ensure that the assessment is applied fairly and that the system is consistent with the accreditation standard.
