 Over 50 laboratory stakeholders gathered at a cocoa-pam hotel on Thursday 19th October to review the national laboratory policy, legislation and regulations. Although the national laboratory policy had been approved since 2019, the Ministry of Health felt it was necessary to gather input from the various stakeholders ahead of the implementation of the policy. St. Lucia's National Laboratory Policy, Legislation and Regulations provides a blueprint for the development of a strong, reliable, quality-assured and sustainable national medical and public health laboratory service. Acting Quality Assurance Manager at the Ministry of Health with Tekla Javatist said the consultative process is key to strengthening the leadership and governance structures to ensure the highest standards of care for the citizenry. It speaks to our commitment to improving healthcare delivery quality, safety and effectiveness as outlined in the National Healthcare Quality Policy. It also means quality, that is, meeting the standards. Quality is of paramount importance in medical laboratories and should be emphasized. Laboratories that practice quality assurance principles generate reliable, relevant and cost-effective results. As we all know, the laboratory is a critical full step in managing a patient or client to ensure enhanced patient clinical outcomes. Providing quality healthcare for life is a crucial priority for the Ministry of Health, Wellness and Elderly Affairs. Chief Medical Officer Dr. Sharon Belba George stated that there was need for national health standards in every service to ensure objective performance monitoring. An honest assessment of our healthcare system identifies some critical gaps that need urgent attention. Healthcare workers in the categories of physicians, nurses, pharmacists, allied health practitioners are regulated and licensed. However, with the exception of pharmacists, the institutions in which they operate are not regulated or licensed. So to ensure an acceptable standard of healthcare on island, link to safety, best practice, efficiency and client-centered care, it is therefore necessary to develop policies to govern all of our services, including our medical practices, our diagnostic centers, our allied health practices and our labs. These standards would apply both in the public and the private sector. So to facilitate the implementation, the necessary legislation would also need to be in place. Director for the National Med Labs Foundation, Ms. Valerie Wilson, provided an overview of the regulatory quality strengthening initiative. So what are some of the key things under the World Bank project? The World Bank project really began in 2019, 2020 actually, just around the time, just before COVID actually. So we looked at advocating under that project. We're looking at advocacy. That's a very big part of that project. We looked at gap assessments in terms of, let me say advocacy, we're talking about advocates for putting those policies and legislation in place. Given the fact that they've been sitting there for a long time, it was clear that we needed some kind of advocacy strategy. We also did gap assessments and looking at what were the national systems, what were the plans that were needed to be done in order to move forward. And for the next slide, please, we looked at the budgets that were necessary and the resource needs that the labs had. And we also looked at what was happening with respect to quality management systems, the gap assessments, the training for tier one and two, and training of assessors. Because if we're going to put requirements for labs to meet and for licensure requirements, we must be training our possessors. So all of those things were done under those projects. There are several expected outcomes of the key stakeholder consultation, some of which include the ability of participants to effectively explain the intent of the medical laboratory policy, legislation and regulations, and describe the licensing responsibilities for medical laboratories in St. Lucia. From the communications unit of the Ministry of Health, Wellness and Elderly Affairs, Julia Peter reporting.