It was doctors rather than the Blood Transfusion Service Board (BTSB) who decided which pharmaceutical companies should be contracted to supply blood products to haemophiliacs, the tribunal heard yesterday. However, Prof Ian Temperley, the man formerly in charge of the treatment of haemophiliacs, said that ultimate responsibility for product selection rested with the BTSB.
On his first day giving evidence, Prof Temperley was questioned about his role in the selection of blood products for haemophiliacs, more than 220 of whom were infected with HIV and/or hepatitis C in the 1970s and 1980s.
Prof Temperley confirmed that a consultation structure was established in 1979, whereby regional treatment directors would advise the BTSB on products under the auspices of the National Haemophilia Services Co-ordinating Committee. A formal protocol was envisaged, whereby the National Drugs Advisory Board and the Department of Health would be consulted.
However, said Prof Temperley, for "good or for ill", a more informal and "realistic position" soon developed. There was a progression, he said, away from the "pristine" model initially devised to a situation where advice was given directly by treating doctors to the BTSB each year.
Counsel for the tribunal Mr John Finlay SC pointed out that there was no year in which the treaters' advice was not accepted by the BTSB's former national director, Dr Jack O'Riordan.
Prof Temperley accepted that this was the case. However, he stressed that if Dr O'Riordan did not like what was being recommended, he could have objected.
He said a situation developed whereby a decision was made by the treaters and nobody felt a need to challenge it. "Maybe they should have done," he said.
He noted that, by 1981, Mr Sean Hanratty, the BTSB's former chief technical officer, had begun playing a more prominent role in the selection of products.
However, Prof Temperley confirmed that he, along with the other doctors, selected the pharmaceutical company "to go with" for imported concentrates.
Asked whether questions of safety were considered, Prof Temperley said only in so far as there was a recognised problem with hepatitis B.
