Barcode technology rolled out nationwide following Leeds trial
New barcode technology is being rolled out at hospitals across the country after a pilot scheme at six sites including Leeds.
It's hoped patient safety will be improved by new barcode technology being rolled out at hospitals across the country after a pilot scheme at six sites including Leeds.
The government says the project will remove human error, and could save the NHS a billion pounds over seven years.
Universal barcodes are attached to medical supplies and equipment - as well as to patients, nurses and doctors. At each stage of a patient's treatment, the codes are scanned.
The technology is designed to help bring down the number of mistakes made during treatments. For example, it could reduce instances of incorrect implants or blood transfusions administered to patients.
The Department of Health has not confirmed how much it would cost to roll out the scheme to all of NHS England.
However, each trust involved in the pilot has received ÂŁ2m, suggesting it could cost a total of about ÂŁ460m to introduce these systems nationwide.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt : "The costs will be of that order to begin with, but of course the savings are huge because one of the most expensive things you can do in a trust is to give someone the wrong care.
"We still have sadly too many avoidable deaths - around 150 every week across the NHS. And what you do with modern technology is you reduce the chances of this happening."
The Department of Health said that early results from the six pilot trusts suggested it could save ÂŁ1bn for the NHS over seven years.
Clare Marx, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, says it's "a terrific scheme" but warned: "Inevitably there will be some teething problems and I think that what we have to do is to plan as we roll it out to make sure that we are really aware of those teething problems in advance so that we can create the additional resource at the beginning of the project."