Richard Price

Hi there, I lead the Scan4Safety programme at University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust (UHP). UHP was selected as one of 6 demonstrator sites in 2016 by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to pilot common ways of working using globally recognised standards (GS1 & PEPPOL) within the NHS. UHP and the other pilot sites (Leeds, Derby, North Tees, Salisbury & Cornwall) adopted core GS1 standards that uniquely identify every Patient, Product (Class III implants) and Place within 3 primary use cases (Inventory Management, Product Recall & Purchase 2 Pay) mandated by the DHSC. The benefits gained have been significant which have concentrated on patient safety and operational efficiency, there has been over £1m cash releasing savings to date at UHP. One key driver was the accuracy and time it took to recall products and how Trusts could identify patients & products quicker using electronic systems instead of paper records. At the beginning of the programme there was a parallel cited between Retail and how they can recall products quickly from shelves and Healthcare, where it can take many weeks/months and not all patients may have been identified eg. PIP breast implants & metal on metal hip replacements. The recall time for all pilot Trusts was reduced to only a few hours. It now takes seconds to identify individual patients and the exact product and location within a computer system, reducing the amount of precious clinical time spent searching through individual patient notes. There has also been a focus on positive patient identification using the NHS ISB1077 standard and the adoption of a GS1 2D data matrix barcode for all In-Patient wristbands. These barcodes are then scanned when using digital systems to ensure the correct electronic patient record is used, this does not replace verbal identity checks. At UHP new born patients are now given printed wristbands instead of handwritten ones where verbal identification is potentially difficult. UHP now has an overarching trust-wide GS1 policy (http://www.plymouthhospitals.nhs.uk/download.cfm?doc=docm93jijm4n7633.pdf&ver=10685) and is continuing to pursue further use cases; RFID tracking for portable medical equipment and surgical instrument trays, a medicines tracking app using the GS1 EPCIS standard and a never event module to alert when wrong sided implants are selected within theatres. The programme is now looking at what else could be supported in the future, dependant on additional funding being secured. From the original DHSC programme, there was a national website developed (https://www.scan4safety.nhs.uk/). GS1 UK worked closely with the national programme and pilot sites and have a lot of information on their website (https://www.gs1uk.org/our-industries/healthcare) and dedicated healthcare web pages (https://healthcare.gs1uk.org/). There are fast follower Trusts taking forward GS1 standards as well, case studies for some of these Trusts and the demonstrator sites can be found on the GS1 UK website. The DHSC central team was disbanded in April 2018 and the programme was agreed to be transitioned to the new NHSx team. GS1 regional adoption groups meet regularly to continue to take this agenda forward. I chair the southern group, which has good attendance and collaboration between Trusts. It has been challenging for other Trusts without a central NHS team focused on driving adoption forward. It is hoped that NHSx will begin to release information on how they will support the Scan4Safety programme nationally to achieve the same benefits for the rest of the NHS. If anyone wants to know more about how UHP is taking the Scan4Safety initiative forward, please do not hesitate to get in contact with me directly (richardprice1@nhs.net). KR Richard