Quality control in chemical and microbiological testing

Analysts who prepare and run controls, and supervisors who review the resulting data before results are released.

Covers both the chemical and the microbiological bench, because the principle is the same and the practice differs — which is exactly the comparison that makes it land.

The syllabus below is the standard shape of the course. It is adjusted to the matrices, methods and instruments you actually run, which is agreed before delivery rather than discovered on the day.

• Control types

  Method blanks, reagent blanks, duplicates, spikes, reference materials, positive and negative controls

• What each protects

  Matching the control to the failure mode it is there to catch

• Frequency

  Per batch, per run, per analyst — deciding it rather than inheriting it

• Acceptance criteria

  Where the limits come from and how they are reviewed

• Media and strain control

  Growth promotion, sterility checks and control organisms on the micro bench

• Failure

  Invalidating a batch, investigating, and what may and may not be re-reported

Courses are written around what a delegate can do afterwards, not what was presented to them. These are the outcomes this one is built to produce.

1. 01Build a QC scheme for a method that catches its real failure modes rather than the generic ones.
2. 02Judge a control result against its criterion without consulting anyone.
3. 03Handle a failed control correctly, including the samples that ran with it.
4. 04Explain to an auditor why your QC frequency is what it is.

Running controls is nearly universal. Knowing what each control is protecting against is not — which is how laboratories end up running a full control set out of habit while the one control that would catch their actual recurring failure is not in the batch.

The failure handling matters more than the running. A failed control that quietly gets repeated until it passes is worse than no control at all, because it produces a record that says everything was fine.

Delivered over 1 day, at your site or at the laboratory, in English or Arabic. Sessions are built around real records, real data and real failures rather than slides of clause numbers, and the people delivering them spend the rest of the week doing the thing being taught.

Group size is agreed in advance — practical sessions are capped so that everyone works rather than watches. An attendance certificate is issued to each delegate on completion.

Ask about any subject not listed here. If it is not something we teach well, we will say so rather than build it for the sake of the booking.