The Weqas programme has been recently modified to predominantly distribute patient samples.
Glycated Haemoglobin (HbA1c) is an established test for monitoring diabetic control and is recommended by the World Health Organisation for the diagnosis of Diabetes Mellitus, provided that stringent quality assurance tests are in place and assays are standardised to criteria aligned to the international reference values (IFCC standards).
Weqas has played a pivotal role in the global standardisation of HbA1c testing in Point of Care testing and Laboratory testing. The target values for the HbA1c EQA programme are assigned by an IFCC approved network laboratory in the Netherlands, which is also a Reference Laboratory for the National Glycohaemoglobin Standardisation Program (NGSP). Patient samples from volunteer diabetic patients are distributed alongside normal patients to evaluate and monitor the accuracy of HbA1c testing, this scheme includes the distribution of challenging samples from patients with known Hb variants. For every diabetic volunteer donation, Weqas kindly donates £150 to Diabetes UK.
