23 March 2022: Presentation (Production in Scotland/Northern Ireland) - A

It's back to Scotland today. The difficulties with agreeing figures for population, anticipated need, and production parameters cause enough issues when related to planning services. But they are further complicated by competing demands and financial constraints. We've seen similar highly public disagreements on the veracity and interpretation of stats and graphs used to underpin Covid strategies.

It seems the geographically delineated Government departments continued to be at odds, particularly England/UK and Scotland. And this relationship difficulty was beyond matters exclusive to blood products for bleeding disorder patients. I guess the approach to winning the argument was to start by questioning the evidential basis for any claims derived therefrom. The dilemma for the layman is that sometimes the evidence really is suspect, whereas sometimes it is robust but inconvenient. Nowadays we see the results as including; experts disagreeing, conspiracy theories thriving, and undermining of confidence proliferating.

Again we see the impact of not having Professor Cash alive to inform the paper evidence - a victory for the proponents of delay. For example, the suggestion of carrying out a study on the suitability of cryo for home treatment. It seems in most cases the arguments against cryo were about convenience and easy of use. Did this agree or not with Cash's study (if it was ever completed)?

Among the factors rendering previous estimates of the demand for products redundant was the increasing life-expectancy of haemophiliacs. How dare we.

The recurring crucial issue related to the production of factor concentrates is the availability of raw or elementally deconstructed plasma. Plasma supply issues have to balance the need for guaranteed availability of factor products and minimising the amount of expensive reserve stocks that may not be required.

Another issue back then was the fact that all Scottish production relied on one stand-alone computer. At the point of requiring to switch it off as part of the move to the new Liberton site, an elevated stockpile was required until it was switched on again and production could resume.

In 1973 there were 420 haemophiliacs in Scotland. In 1975 it was 418. Seems like a reasonable death rate (or emigrations?)

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