UK Standards for Microbiology Investigations- Chairs Strategy Working Group Meeting November 2020

The focus of the meetings will be to propose consistent ways of working when developing UK SMIs for bacteriology and virology and agree a consistent framework.

UK Standards for Microbiology Investigations (SMIs) comprise a collection of recommended algorithms for initial test selection, procedures for carrying out microbiology and virology tests, together with testing and confirmatory strategies.

UK SMIs promote high quality practices and help to assure the comparability of diagnostic information obtained in different laboratories. This in turn facilitates standardisation of surveillance underpinned by research, development and audit and promotes public health and patient confidence in their healthcare services. The UK SMIs also provide a reference point for method development.

The educational objectives are to implement the methods in microbiology, consolidating the expertise of the working group members in order to produce a consensus standard to be used by clinical laboratories. The outcome of the meetings will contribute to the development of good standards for laboratories to comply with.  During the discussion process the chairs of the UK SMI working groups will also highlight developmental areas and priorities to feed into the wider strategy.

Feedback of the documents from a wide consultation process will ensure that the methods remain relevant, appropriate, up to date and will strengthen SMIs for use within a clinical laboratory setting.