The levels can be related to: Mandatory, minimum panels of antimicrobial agents (choose between routine panel versus extended panel), where laboratories are scored according to the task they are prepared to shoulder. External quality assessment - bringing difficulty, complexity and severity of errors to bear on the assessment of performance in antimicrobial susceptibility testing Some external quality assurance (EQA) programmes score the proficiency of participants [NEQAS (UK), EARS-Net (ECDC)], while others do not [LABQUALITY (Finland), CAESAR (WHO Europe)]. [Extracted from the article]