Kampala, 4th September 2015; Uganda commemorated World Accreditation Day 2015 under the theme ‘Delivering Confidence in Health and Social Care’ with a focus on Laboratory Services and launched the National Accreditation Policy, 2014 at the Metropole Hotel in Kampala.

The Guest of Honour Hon James Mutende, the Minister of State for Trade and Industry (MoTI) in charge of the Industry and Technology said that the increased demand for quality goods and services called for consistency in maintaining quality which he said is to be fostered by accreditation. He also said that despite the challenges faced by government in ensuring quality of goods and services, there’s commitment to improve, “the ultimate goal in all this is excellence and competence”, he said. He also said that the launching of the policy has paved way for setting up of an accreditation institution in Uganda.

The World Health Organization Country (WHO) Representative, Dr. Wondimagegnehu Alemu in his remarks delivered by Dr. Juliet Bataringaya (WHO) said that globally, laboratories are an essential and fundamental part of all health systems saying “by producing reliable and timely results, laboratories influence the decision-making mechanism in the management of patients as well as disease prevention and control.” He further said that in order to achieve this, WHO in collaboration with partners developed a step wise approach towards accreditation of health laboratories in the African Region, commonly referred to as Stepwise Laboratory Improvement Process Strengthening toward Accreditation (SLIPTA) programme.

The SLIPTA programme provides a framework for strengthening national laboratory services in a stepwise manner by providing graduated levels of performance recognition towards long-term fulfillment of the ISO 15189 standard. The goal is to encourage, support and recognize the implementation of quality management systems (QMS) in the medical laboratories. It also provides a pathway that enables laboratories to break down the otherwise difficult to achieve goal of accreditation into smaller achievable tasks leading to the same final result.

Dr. Alan Muruta, Assistant Commissioner National Disease Control, who represented the Director General of Health Services at the function said that Uganda is a signatory of the WHO Maputo Declaration that called on governments to strengthen and support the laboratory system as a priority. He was happy to note that the National Tuberculosis Reference Laboratory was accredited by South African National Accreditation Services, making it the first health facility to achieve accreditation under the WHO/SLIPTA laboratory strengthening programme in Uganda.

The Deputy Director-Technical Services Ms. Susan Ocheng of Kenya National Accreditation Services (KENAS) presented experiences on “The role of accreditation and impact on quality and confidence of healthcare service provision”. The experience on setting up sound institutions and building capacity to maintain the standard of accreditation services was shared by Ebenezer Limited Clinical and National TB Reference Laboratory.

Key challenges faced in the progress towards accreditation were highlighted and they include inadequate capacity for laboratory equipment calibrations and equipment maintenance, limited involvement of clinicians and facility management in the laboratory accreditation.

The lessons learned and recommendations from the 27th celebration of the World Accreditation Day include the increased opportunity for sharing experiences from accredited laboratories. The forum also presented opportunities for future collaborations on improving laboratories both in the health and industry to attain accreditation.

The ceremony was well attended by heads and managers of laboratories from CDC, WHO Uganda, MoH, MoTI and private sector, who shared experience from which other service providers could learn as they strive to improve the quality of laboratory services.

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