TESTING and processing of blood donated for transfusions in Scotland is to be concentrated at two centres instead of the current five, resulting in the loss of more than 60 jobs, it was revealed yesterday.

Laboratory services currently undertaken in Dundee, Aberdeen and Inverness are being transferred to Edinburgh and a new centre in Glasgow.

The Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service said the rationalisation - subject to a three-month consultation period - was intended to concentrate expertise and equipment so that the service can keep pace with new developments and pressures.

Professor Ian Franklin, the service's medical and scientific director, said a risk assessment had been carried out on the implications of transporting blood from Glasgow or Edinburgh to remote areas in an emergency, particular in adverse weather.

''In the most extreme cases of bad weather, all medical services are affected and we are no different, but the flexibility of having two national reserves will be an advantage.''

He said all five centres would continue to organise collections and maintain blood banks, normally about three days' supply, and added: ''If there is an emergency in Aberdeen that requires a lot of blood, they have to get donors in, and that can take a day. When we have two national reserves, we can get supplies to them in a few hours.''

Most of the blood drawn and used in Scotland circulates in the central area. Half the turnover is at the West of Scotland centre, based at Law Hospital, which will transfer between now and the end of 2000 to a new centre at Gartnavel General Hospital, Glasgow (and not, as once planned, at the Royal Infirmary).

The imperatives driving the changes are:

q Increased demand for blood and blood products caused by the development of new treatments, particularly for cancer patients, and the health requirements of an ageing population.

q The decline in the blood supply, attributed in part to the busier lifestyles of donors, requiring improved organisation of donor services and the most effective possible use of blood.

q The need to implement new mandatory testing techniques, including the introduction of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) to test for viruses.

q The requirement to improve the quality of blood components at a time when virus infections and new variant CJD are putting blood supply under unprecedented pressure.

The PCR test is only just emerging from laboratory research into routine use - it tests directly for the DNA or RNA of viruses like HIV or hepatitis, unlike existing tests which detect antibodies to the viruses.

This leaves a ''window'' of infectiveness which would not be detected, prior to the formation of antibodies. PCR will close that window, and its use by SNBTS is being developed with the aid of scientists from Edinburgh University.

Professor Franklin said: ''PCR is already being used for Hepatitis C detection and we hope to extend this to other viruses. But we have to recruit scientists to do it, and we couldn't do this without concentrating the work on two sites.''

The service's chairman, Mr Angus Macmillan Douglas, said the money saved in property, equipment, and 67 jobs would be redirected more effectively and not lost from the service's #38m annual budget.

However, the MSF union, representing most of the staffing areas involved, condemned the ''veil of secrecy'' surrounding the changes.

Regional organiser Carmen McAteer said: ''Our members ought to have been consulted over the planning of this from the outset, instead of being kept in the dark until the proposals were formulated.''

She said it was vital the service did not repeat mistakes made when the National Blood Authority rationalised the service in England and Wales.