Defining responsibilities and authority

A hierarchical scheme of authorities avoids conflicts of responsibilities in taking decisions.

• Responsibilities must be defined as to correspond to the performance of the required processes.
  


• Substitutes must be nominated to ensure continuity of work in the event of unexpected absences.

Responsibilities shall be defined as not to create evident conflicts with the expected outputs. For example, the person defining the control samples for internal quality control is aware of the identity of the duplicate and control samples, and therefore, shall not be allowed to perform analytical work.

Lists of substitutions shall be prepared as to cover the main tasks required for the steady work of the laboratory, but not necessarily all of the functions. Some functions, which do not require of highly specific competence, can be performed indistinctively by more than one person.