18th May 2010 - Board Minutes

Minutes of the Meeting of theBoardof the Irish Blood Transfusion Service held onTuesday 18th May 2010at2.00pmin theBoardroom, National Blood Centre, James’s Street,Dublin8.

 

Present:                                 Ms. Katharine Bulbulia (Chairperson)

                                                Mr. David Lowe 

Ms. Jane O’Brien

DrPaulBrowne

Mr David Keenan

Ms Ann Horan

Dr Mary Cahill

MsSineadNi Mhaille

 

Apologies:                              MrMark Moran

                                                Ms Marie Keane

                                                MrSean Wyse

 

Also in attendance:               Mr. Andrew Kelly, Chief Executive

Dr. William Murphy, Medical & Scientific Director

Ms Mirenda O’Donovan, Secretary to theBoard

 

The Chairperson thanked the Board for agreeing to commence the meeting early.  The Board expressed its deepest sympathy to Mr Sean Wyseon the death of his mother.

 

  1. Minutes of the Meeting of theBoardonTuesday 20th April 2010

 

The Minutes of the meeting of the Board on Tuesday 20th April were agreed subject to amendment.  Proposed by Ms Ann Horan and seconded by Mr David Lowe.

  1. Matters arising

Prion filtration

The IBTS has received a request from HIQA to nominate a member to its group reviewing prion filtration.  It was also agreed that the CE would remind the DOH&C at the forthcoming governance meeting about the necessity of convening a meeting of the Expert Group on Hepatitis C.

Cross match services

It has been announced by HSE South that St Mary’s Orthopaedic Hospital is to close in 2011 and the crossmatch services currently supplied by the IBTS to that hospital will be carried out by CUH.

Grouping Solution

This will go ahead as scheduled on 5th July. 

  1. Chief Executive’s Report

 

Quality

A revised presentation of quality system data is being prepared and will be ready for the Board shortly.

ISO 15189

Assessors for this inspection must be independent and therefore cannot be any of the IBTS customers.  INAB are currently sourcing those assessors and it is hoped to have a date for the inspection in the Autumn.

Donor Grouping

The implementation of the National Donor Grouping Solution is on schedule and will commence on 5th July.  A number of test runs have already been completed and the contingency with SNBTS will be in place shortly.  This has been tested.  There was some concern expressed about the potential impact of air traffic restrictions on flying samples to Scotland, in the event that the contingency had to be invoked.  The CE assured the Board that contingency transport arrangements using the ferry was also being tested and was used for the most recent test run.

Resources

The CE pointed out that acting up posts on a temporary basis were necessary in Grouping, and both virology laboratories to ensure that these critical functions can operate fully. The donor grouping laboratory was particularly important given we will be consolidating on one site from 5th July.

ISBT bid

The IBTS has been short listed to host the 2013 ISBT Regional Congress.  The final decision will be made following presentations by the short listed countries at the ISBT Congress in Berlin in June.

  1. CorkCentre

 

The CE has been in contact with the IDA regarding potentially suitable buildings or sites in the Model Farm Road area.  While a number of buildings were identified, none of them were suitable and further information on potential sites is awaited.  It was proposed that the IBTS put out a tender for suitable sites or existing buildings to meet our requirements, seeking sealed bids.  This was approved by the Board.

  1. Pension Scheme

 

The CE outlined the key points in the pension scheme document. 

4. Presentation on Human Resources

The Director of Human Resources made a presentation on the implementation of the change programme in the IBTS, the progress made to date and the main outstanding issues.  The Board thanked him for his detailed and informative presentation.

  1. Finance Committee Minutes

The Chairperson of the Finance Committee briefed the Board on the meetings of 1st March and 10th May.  He noted that the committee were continuing to work on the Plexus report and hoped to be in a position to return to the Board with a detailed analysis shortly.  Income is positive, but there is a significant Capex budget yet to be drawn down.

A proposal to reduce the mark up on blood products was discussed at the Finance Committee was proposed by Ms Jane O’Brien, seconded by Ms Sinead Ni Mhaille and approved by the Board.

  1. Statement of Internal Financial Controls

The Chair of the Audit and Compliance Committee briefed the Board on the Statement of Internal Financial Controls.  The Committee has signed off on the document and it was approved by the Board.  It was noted that the Clinical Risk Register is now an item on the MAC Agenda.

  1. Sub-Committee on Research Strategy

Dr M Cahill briefed the Board on progress being made by the Sub-Committee on meeting the targets set by the Board.  Meetings have been held with a number of the universities, broadly outlining the IBTS proposition and intention to seek a research partner.  It was agreed that the research bid request would stress the importance of a collaborative strategy.  It was also agreed that standardised documentation for formulating a bid as per the HRB or SFI would be incorporated in the invitation to bid. 

It was agreed that the Universities where it had not been possible to meet with the relevant people would be told that the IBTS was proceeding to a bid process and that if they wished to do so, they could meet IBTS representatives over the next two weeks.  It was agreed that the CE would brief the external assessment panel on progress to date.  It was agreed that an Oversight Committee from the IBTS would be formed to ensure that milestones were being met.  It was further agreed that the Medical and Scientific Director would write the research bid request.

The CE noted that the Board member due to be appointed would have a role to play as he was an external expert and it was further noted that he had particular expertise as a scientific adviser on assessing research proposals.

  1. Correspondence

There were two items of correspondence.

vCJD Advisory Committee

It was agreed that the CE and M&SD would respond to this letter from the DOH&C.

Pension Levy

The CE’s response to this letter from the DOH&C was noted.

It was agreed that the Platelets usage report would be on the agenda for the meeting in June.

  1. Date of next meeting

The next meeting of the Board will take place on Tuesday 15th June in theCorkCentre at1.30pm.

Signed:___________________                                        Date:________________