November 2009 Board minutes

Minutes of the Meeting of theBoardof the Irish Blood Transfusion Service held onTuesday 17th November 2009at2.00pmin theBoardroom, National Blood Centre, James’s Street,Dublin8.

Present:                                 Ms Katharine Bulbulia (Chairperson)

Mr.Sean Wyse

                                                Mr. David Lowe 

Ms. Marie Keane

Ms. Jane O’Brien

Mr David Keenan

Dr Mary Cahill

Mr Mark Moran

Ms Sinead Ni Mhaille

Dr Cees van der Poel

Apologies:                              Dr Paul Browne

Also in attendance:               Mr. Andrew Kelly, Chief Executive

Dr. William Murphy, Medical &Scientific Director

Ms Mirenda O’Donovan, Secretary to theBoard

1.     Minutes of the meeting of the Board on20^th October 2009

The minutes of the meeting of the Board on 20^th October 2009 were agreed subject to amendment and proposed by Mr Mark Moran and seconded by Ms Marie Keane.

2.     Matters arising

SJH

Monies outstanding from SJH have now been paid as agreed.

Benchmarking

The Report on blood bank benchmarking prepared for the Dutch Government is to be presented to the Government within the next two weeks.  It will be available thereafter to participating countries.

Abbott Contract

3 year contract has been approved by the Acting Chairperson and the Chair of the Finance Committee, commencing on 1^st August 2009to the value of €5.8m. The intervening period between the previous contract and the current one has also been approved. 

      Chief Risk Officer

      The position of Chief Risk Officer will be discussed at the EMT this week. The CE     

      will revert to the Board with a proposal at the next meeting.

      It was agreed to add one item to the Board agenda.

3.     Chief Executive’s Report

Blood Supply

The blood supply remains very strong.  Collections increased by just over 3% in October over the same month last year. 

The IMB completed their inspection at the NBC on 12^th November.  There were no majors, no criticals and 4 others. 

Day of Action – 24^th November

The day of action will have significant impact on operations.  All clinics are normally open on Tuesdays and it will cause serious difficulty for platelets and neonatal blood supply.  The IBTS is in discussions with the unions to try and minimise the disruption. 

DPR

The timeline for the full implementation of Phase II has been extended to Q1 of 2010.  This is to ensure that the changes already implemented in Carlow, Tuam, Cork, Limerick and Ardee can be fully embedded before implementing them in the outstanding clinics.  This will also allow the move to 3.5 hour clinics in January.

Pension Scheme

The CE has written to the Assistant Secretary responsible for pensions in the Department of Finance seeking a meeting to discuss options on the pension scheme.  The Board reiterated its existing strategy on the matter. 

Resources

The Board confirmed its support for the CE’s proposal to facilitate successful transfer of crossmatch to MUH in Cork, to allow blood donation clinics to function and to facilitate the restructuring of the laboratories in Cork.   

4.     Presentation by Dr Emer Lawlor on Recipient Tracing Programme

The Director of the Recipient Tracing Programme gave a presentation on the options analysis project status report.  It was noted that this material would also be presented to the Expert Group on Hepatitis C shortly.  The Board thanked Dr Lawlor for her detailed and informative presentation.

5.     Presentation on the budget for 2010 by the Director of Finance

The Board approved the 2010 budget.  The Board approved a 5% reduction in red cell prices and a 2% reduction in the price of blood products.  This was proposed by Mr David Lowe and seconded by Ms Marie Keane. The Board and the Chairperson of the Finance Committee thanked the Director of Finance and his team for their work in preparing the budget. 

It was agreed that the Finance Committee would be authorised to make further 2010 price reductions across all products in line with Government policy post-budget.  This was proposed by Mark Moran and seconded by Sinead Ni Mhaille. 

6.     Strategic Plan 2010-2012

It was agreed that the Board would spend a day on finalising strategy and would be joined by the Executive Management Team.  It was agreed that a date in early January would be set and circulated to the Board. 

7.     Finance Committee Minutes– 13^th September 2009

The Finance Committee minutes were noted. 

8.     Schedule of Board meetings for 2010

It was agreed to change the February Board meeting to 23^rd February.  It was also noted that the third Tuesday in December was very close to Christmas.  It was agreed that this would be revisited.

9.     Board Dinner

It was agreed that former members of the Board and the former Chairperson would be invited to join the Board for dinner to thank them for their service after the Board meeting in December.

10. Remuneration Committee

The Remuneration Committee briefed the Board on its meeting of 10^th November.     

      Signed:________________                                  Date:___________________