Blood bank drops €3m safety project

THE Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS) has ditched plans to upgrade a computer system used to ensure the safety of blood products after spending more than €700,000 on the project.

The Progesa computer system was introduced in the Dublin and Cork blood banks in 2003, following a series of blood contamination scandals in the State.

The IBTS had set aside about €3.13 million for the software upgrade and to date about €720,000 has been spent on software, professional fees and staff costs.

An IBTS spokesperson confirmed yesterday that work by the blood bankon the French computer system, called eProgesa, had been discontinued.

The spokesperson said the blood bank had spent more than two years on the software project before deciding to stop work on it.

The original computer system had also been the subject of controversy — overrunning on costs and experiencing long delays in going live.

The system, specially designed for blood banks, handles about 200,000 blood donations from Irish people each year that are screened for HIV, hepatitis and other blood-borne infections.

When it was introduced in Ireland, the blood bank said it would allow better traceability of blood from the time of donation to use by hospitals and also reduce the potential for human error in releasing products not fully tested.

The spokesperson said the IBTS had intended upgrading to a new generation of software over a three-to-four-year period.

Documents secured last year by the Irish Medical News under the Freedom of Information Act indicated that both the Dublin and Cork centres were having difficulties upgrading.

An Irish Medicine Board inspection report said technical problems in relation to the supplier of the system had resulted in a delay in implementing the software.

According to IBTS board meeting minutes from earlier this year there were 52 outstanding issues with eProgesa — eight of which were with the blood bank and 44 with the providers.

The IBTS spokesperson said the existing Progesa software system was working well and would continue to be used to track blood donations. She said the blood bank was now concentrating on upgrading the hardware on which Progesa sits.