Survey conducted by GS1 UK and Nursing Times reveals potential £900 million impact on NHS budgets

LONDON, 12th February 2009 – Over a third of the UK’s 300,000 nurses spend up to two hours on an average shift trying to locate vital medical items such as pumps, drip stands and dressings, reveals a survey of nurses commissioned by GS1 UK, the not for profit data standards organisation, and Nursing Times magazine.

This is equivalent to 40 hours per month, or a quarter of a working day spent looking for equipment that should be readily available to ensure effective patient care. It indicates that up to one week of a nurse’s salary is being wasted every month. For the NHS, this could mean that more than £900 million of salary expenditure each year is being spent looking for medical items that could be found instantly by using technology that has been in our supermarkets for over 30 years.

Over the past six months, 16% of respondents say they have given up a search completely after being unable to find equipment either by themselves, or by asking colleagues or other wards.  Significantly, only 1% of those surveyed currently use a computer to locate items, despite the fact that it is two years since the Department of Health advised trusts to adopt the GS1 System of coding technology.

Nurses are frustrated by this and believe that simple technology, such as supermarket style bar code scanning, could ease the problem. Nine out of ten respondents said they would be prepared to use a computer to hunt down missing items if the information was accurate, with a similar amount willing to use a scanner to log items. For example, if each drip stand was bar coded they could easily be scanned in and out of a ward. Nurses could then access a shared computer to locate them at all times.

“I was working on a busy shift last Sunday. One of my patient’s dressings needed changing and I had to spend an hour looking for a new one,” says Jane Smith a London-based nurse. “These kinds of things happen on a daily basis.”

“Our survey proves beyond doubt that nurses have a major problem in using their time effectively and in the best interests of patients,” says Gary Lynch, chief executive of GS1 UK. “It is just as clear that if hospitals took on our simple bar coding system this would remove unnecessary obstacles to patient care, as the Department of Health and nurses themselves already recognise.”

“Nurses are under enough pressure caring for their patients without having to spend their valuable time looking for equipment, especially when the technology is available to locate items quickly and easily,” adds Steve Ford, news editor of Nursing Times. "It is time the NHS caught up. Additionally, 57% of our respondents thought they walked more than five miles per week, that’s 260 miles per working year – much of which is probably spent on fruitless searching.”

Notes to Editors:

• The survey was run in conjunction with Nursing Times from 21st January 2009 – 4th February 2009.
• A survey of 989 nurses was conducted across England, Scotland and Wales.

Key findings:

• Over one third of respondents (36%) said it can take up to two hours to locate items on an average shift
• 87% of respondents said they spent up to one hour helping other wards to locate items
• Respondents were searching for a wide variety of items – but most commonly medical devices (56%), consumables, e.g. dressings (53%) and medication (47%)
• Over the past 6 months respondents said they could have spent anything from 1-6 hours looking for items (37%), with 16% saying that they had given up altogether having not found what they were looking for
• 60% of the nurses questioned look for items themselves, with 23% relying on help from colleagues and 11% calling around other wards. Only 1% of respondents use technology, such as asset tracking systems, to help find items
• 90% of respondents said they would use a ward computer to locate items if the information was accurate, with 88% saying they would be prepared to scan bar coded items so that they can be traced
• 81% said that the most important driver behind a project such as this would be to free up more time to devote to patient care
• 79% of respondents had not signed up to the Productive Ward Programme, but of those that had 81% said that they would use more technology to support the programme
• 57% thought they walked more than 5 miles per week

Useful additional comments

With regards to using bar codes:

• They have to be easy to use
• All staff have to work together. It can’t be left to the minority to use the system properly. It will only be as good as the people that use it.
• It can’t be too time consuming
• It might be something that admin support staff could help with
• Wards would be more likely to share equipment as they wouldn’t need to worry about where it would end up in the hospital.

 Other comments:

“It would be lovely to be able to locate items at the touch of a button”
“The time spent searching for things can vary from one shift to the next”
“Equipment is often borrowed but not returned”
“This is a major problem, my pet peeve”
“Some days it feels like I spend all day looking for things”

List of what is searched for most often

Pumps; Drip stands; Thermometers; Keys (to drugs cupboard); Mattresses

About GS1 UK

GS1 UK is an independent global data standards and solutions organisation which has been supporting the Department of Health’s ‘Coding for Success’ policy through initiatives with several NHS agencies including NHS Connecting for Health and NHS PASA. In February 2007, the Department of Health recommended that the GS1 System of coding should be adopted throughout the healthcare system in England.  Following this recommendation, the NHS Connecting for Health (NHS CfH) initiative, facilitated by GS1 UK, was launched to engage, inform and support NHS hospitals in England on the importance of using coding technology and the GS1 System of standards to improve patient safety.  GS1 UK helps the healthcare sector to implement data standards through the use of bar codes, RFID, Global Data Synchronisation (GDS) and electronic business messaging.
www.gs1uk.org

About GS1 UK NHS Connecting for Health (CfH) initiative

The GS1 UK NHS CfH initiative was launched following the Department of Health’s announcement in February 2007 recommending the use of GS1 standards as part of the ‘Coding for Success’ policy.  The policy document issued guidance for the use of automatic identification and data capture technologies, such as bar codes, across the NHS.  The initiative aims to engage, inform and support NHS hospitals in England on the importance of using AIDC technology and the GS1 System of standards to improve patient safety. 

GS1 UK and NHS CfH have been encouraging NHS hospitals to sign up to the initiative and start using their GS1 unique numbers.  NHS CfH is providing NHS hospitals in England an opportunity to join GS1 UK for free so that they can start coding their application areas using globally unique GS1 standards.

About the Patient Safety Enquiry

GS1 UK recently provided evidence at a Health Select Committee’s Patient Safety Inquiry into the contribution that technical systems can make to patient safety in the NHS.

For more information on the inquiry visit http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/health_committee/hc0708pn19.cfm

About Nursing Times

Nursing Times is the leading weekly magazine for nurses in the United Kingdom. The magazine and its website nursingtimes.net publish original nursing research and a host of clinical articles for nurses at all stages in their career.
Nursing Times also provides a professional and clinical news service; an extensive Opinion section where nurses debate the hot topics; in-depth features on nursing issues and topics, such as nurse prescribing, and clinical supplements covering four main areas of practice - infection control, respiratory, continence and wound care.
Nursing Times has been in continuous publication since 1906 and is now published by Emap Inform, one of the UK's largest publishers.