5th July 2000

You may have read recently about a computer error in a Sheffield hospital which resulted in some pregnant women being wrongly advised that their babies were at a low risk of developing Downs Syndrome. It now turns out that the reason was a programming error discovered in the hospital's Pathlan system. This system calculates the risk of Down's Syndrome from an analysis of blood test results and the mother's age amongst other things. Apparently the program calculates the mother's age from her date of birth and, after January 4th, 2000, the calculation was done incorrectly. The hospital has refused to say whether the error was due to the programmer ignoring the Y2K effect but investigations are ongoing.

Brian Grainger

Cf. Daily Telegraph, Friday September 14, 2001, page 13.