Analytical & Advisory Services Division
Responsibilities
The Division has major scientific and statutory commitments in food safety, environmental pollution and waste discharge monitoring, pharmaceuticals and Chinese medicines examination for public health protection, commodities testing for safety evaluation, as well as protection of revenue and consumer interests. The work involved frequently requires special investigations, or could be purely consultative for which no laboratory examination is needed. Equipped with a well-qualified and competent workforce, this Division is able to consistently provide quality scientific services to support bureaux and departments of the HKSAR Government.
Organisation
The Division presently consists of two functional Groups each comprising a number of specialist Sections. The two Groups are:
Data System
The Laboratory has an integrated laboratory instrumentation network connecting major instruments to individual user workstations. Internal communication is via the Local Area Network serving over 500 users. A centralized sample information management system maintains all the records of incoming samples and outgoing reports. Other functions of the system include the tracking and status report for individual samples, as well as various workload statistics.
Quality Assurance
The Division has successfully adopted a quality system in compliance with the ISO/IEC 17025 requirements since January 2002. All the tests previously accredited to the ISO/IEC Guide 25 have been confirmed to the ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation status under the Hong Kong Laboratory Accreditation Scheme. The Laboratory holds regular in-house seminars and training classes for various grades of staff. Within the ambit of our resource, open seminars with prominent scientists as guest speakers are also held for the local testing communities from time to time.