PATI ENT SAFE T Y
understanding of how much operations cost. “That means it is much easier to identify when unnecessary expenditure is being encountered and then to take action to reduce that unwarranted variation. It gives us visibility and control over what we’re paying, and also visibility and control over what we’re doing,” he commented.
Learning how to get started with Scan4Safety adoption The impact potential of point-of-care scanning across the NHS is evident, and its value is acknowledged by Kevin Downs, executive director of finance and performance at University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust. “With barcode scanning, we record
everything that touches the patient and that database has a multiple of recipients: procurement, who look at what we’re using and discuss it with the supplier; patient safety, who can actually trace the product at the touch of a button; finance, with accurate costing information per patient; and clinicians for discussions about clinical improvement in practice.” With the scope to drive transformational change and operational efficiencies across the board, the adoption of Scan4Safety serves as a blueprint for organisations to begin introducing point-of-care barcode scanning into their own workflow. The full report details next steps and provides access to supporting guides on how to embed GS1 standards for people, products, and places, as part of the implementation journey.
The benchmark for the future of healthcare As Lord David Prior, chair at NHS England, so aptly highlighted in his opening foreword to the evidence report: “It is time [barcodes] became commonplace in the NHS. They offer traceability, efficiency savings and greater patient safety”. For clinicians to be able to effectively monitor patient outcomes and to enable
efficient post-surgical observation of a product or device’s performance by regulatory bodies, such as the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, point-of-care scanning for data capture needs to become our ‘business as usual’. The use of standards across healthcare needs to be universally applied and unique identification will inevitably be instrumental in delivering traceability within clinical settings – a key component in driving improvements to patient safety.
Contact GS1 UK For further information on GS1 standards and their use in healthcare, visit the GS1 UK healthcare website at:
www.gs1uk.org/ healthcare
The full Scan4Safety evidence report can downloaded at:
https://healthcare.gs1uk. org/scan4safety/ and you can also explore examples of GS1 standards in practice on the GS1 UK case study portal at: https://
healthcare.gs1uk.org/.
References 1 A scan of the benefits: the Scan4Safety evidence report, July 2020, accessed at: https://healthcare.
gs1uk.org/scan4safety/
2 The Cumberlege Review (Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review) was announced in February 2018 by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP, to examine how the healthcare system had responded to concerns raised by patients and families about three medical interventions: the hormone pregnancy test Primodos, the anti-epileptic drug sodium valproate, surgical mesh. Chaired by Baroness Julia Cumberlege CBE DL, the full report was published on 8 July 2020 titled ‘First Do No Harm’.
3 The Medicines and Medical Devices Bill “seeks to address this regulatory gap [as a result of the UK no long being covered by the European Communities Act 1972 at the end of the transition period] through introducing regulation-making, delegated powers covering the fields of human medicines, clinical trials of human medicines, veterinary medicines and medical devices”.
4 Ibid.
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5 Never Events are defined as events that “are serious, largely preventable patient safety incidents that should not occur if healthcare providers have implemented existing national guidance or safety recommendations”.
Further reading l
https://www.scan4safety.nhs.uk/in-action/ nhs-compliance-status/
CSJ
l
https://www.gov.uk/government/ publications/medicines-and-medical- devices-bill-overarching-documents/how-a- medical-device-information-system-might- work-in-practice
l
https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp- content/uploads/2020/08/Provisional_ publication_-_NE_1_April_2019_-_29_ February_2020.pdf
About the author
Glen Hodgson is head of healthcare at GS1 UK. He is charged with supporting the NHS and the healthcare industry to deliver greater efficiency and a more robust approach to patient safety. With more than 20 years of national and international experience, Glen has served at board level in a variety of operational and commercial roles within complex organisational structures in the pharmaceutical and healthcare arenas.
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