Most schemes for the accreditation (e.g. United Kingdom Accreditation Service) and certification (e.g. BS EN ISO 9002) of laboratories include a requirement to establish and maintain procedures for the management and control of documents generated internally. Such documents include policy statements, procedures, specifications, and some notices and memoranda. Organisations benefit from using agreed and approved information and from knowing that staff are using agreed and approved methods in their operating procedures. Document control systems are likely to become compulsory as accreditation schemes, such as Clinical Pathology Accreditation (CPA) for clinical microbiology laboratories, align with international standards. The Technical Services Division (TSD) in PHLS Headquarters has been developing a control system for various documents that it issues to the PHLS and control of documentation that forms the TSD quality system. The document control system has recently developed into a document management system that provides a mechanism for managing all documents generated or received by the division. TSD's approach is described here to provide laboratories and other organisations with ideas for how they could set up or develop their own document management system to improve accessibility to information.