MCERTS
MCERTS is the Environment Agency’s Monitoring Certification Scheme. It was established to ensure that environmental measurements are carried out to a high quality.
The Environment Agency only accepts results on soil if they are MCERTS accredited.
UKAS (United Kingdom Accreditation Service) are the only organisation who can grant MCERTS accreditation on behalf of the Environment Agency. Accreditation is granted on a method by method basis against the requirements of the Environment Agency’s “Performance Standard for Laboratories Undertaking Chemical Testing of Soil” which is based on ISO 17025, the international standard for laboratories of all types. ISO 17025 is the standard against which laboratories are assessed against in order to gain UKAS accreditation.
A common question is “what is the difference between MCERTS and UKAS accreditation?” and although there are various areas of the MCERTS standard that specify slight additions to ISO17025 the answer mainly lies in the validation of methods.
Laboratories carrying out analysis in exact accordance with published standards such as BS ENs do not need to validate the methods to obtain UKAS accreditation. In house methods need to be validated for UKAS accreditation. ISO17025 gives guidance for method validation but the MCERTS standard defines in detail how method validations shall be done and what precision and bias figures are acceptable. As a large proportion of analytical methods are in house MCERTS is a valuable tool to ensure that methods are suitable.
Nicholls Colton Analytical (NCA) fully support UKAS and MCERTS accreditation and see it as an essential part of our quality system.
NCA also take part in the CONTEST inter-lab proficiency scheme which is ran by the LGC PT group specifically to meet the requirements of the MCERTS standard.