Irish Blood Transfusion Service Board endorses dual site testing
The IBTS Board today (Friday) agreed an implementation plan for the Report of the International Panel on donation testing in Ireland. Outlining the plan, IBTS Chairman Michael McLoone said that the Board had given detailed consideration to the eleven recommendations made by the Panel and it was the Boards view that this was the best way to move the Report forward. The implementation plan will be forwarded to the Minister for Health and Children Micheal Martin TD. At its meeting today the Board decided as follows:
- to recommend to the Minister for Health and Children that testing, including nucleic acid testing, should be carried out in both the Dublin and Cork centres i.e. that dual site testing should be retained;
- that the new facility to be built in Cork should preferably be located on the campus of Cork University Hospital to support academic, educational, research and development activities;
- that the management structures be revised to allow headquarters focus on developing an integrated high quality national blood system with each centre focused on the management of operations in their respective centres;
- that the appointment by the Minister for Health and Children of the medical co-ordinator of the Dutch national blood transfusion service will now provide the necessary international transfusion medicine expertise on the Board as recommended by the report;
- that the implementation of the Progesa integrated computer system proceed as scheduled to be operational by mid-March in Cork and mid-May in Dublin; that operational standards be kept under systematic review to ensure that they comply with Good Manufacturing Practice and with the new blood directive which has to be implemented before the end of February 2005.