Authors summarize minimal requirements on the quality of activities in a clinical laboratory from the point of view of different fields – management, personal and technical equipment, ensuring quality of examination procedures and communication with users of laboratory services. Basic requirements for clinical laboratories are formulated. The text is enriched with questions to be posed both by workers of these laboratories and users and payers of the provided medical care.

        Key words: requirements on the quality of a clinical laboratory – validation – verification – uncertainty of measurement – communication between the laboratory and users