GenQA Governance

The GenQA Director is supported by a Scientific Advisory Board as well as Specialist Advisory Groups.

The Scientific Advisory Board consists of the Chairs of the different Specialist Advisory Groups (SAG), the GenQA Director, Deputy Directors, Operations Manager and the Quality Manager. The Board meets bi-annually.

The SAGs consist of representatives from all relevant assessor teams as well as the GenQA Director and the relevant Deputy Director(s). The SAGs also review participants’ submissions that have received a poor performance and review appeals.  More information can be found at https://genqa.org/work-with-us

The GenQA Director reports to the chair of the National Quality Assurance Advisory Panel (NQAAP) for Genetics which is responsible for monitoring performance standards in UK laboratories. If applicable, the GenQA Director reports to the relevant national regulatory bodies in other countries.

On request of the Swiss Society of Medical Genetics (SSMG), GenQA has a collaboration agreement with CSCQ (Centre Suisse de Contrôle de Qualité) who distribute EQA samples for GenQA and administer the EQA payment for the laboratories. CSCQ will issue Swiss laboratories with an annual certificate, approved by SMGM, QUALAB and FOPH, for their participation in GenQA EQAs, CSCQ will pass on information about poor performance to FOPH.

GenQA also has agreements with Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (RCPAQAP) and Sciensano in Belgium. GenQA will pass on performance information for all laboratories enrolled through either of these two organisations for their respective performance monitoring.

Anonymised Poor Performance data is also shared with the ESHG-EuroGentest Quality Subcommittee.