May 19, 2014 Opinion piece
A report by the Care Quality Commission following unannounced inspections at the Manchester Royal Infirmary and the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital has found records 'not fit for purpose'.
It revealed that many written entries in patient medical records were illegible, leaving patients at risk of receiving the ‘wrong treatment’.
Commenting on the findings, Chris Doyle, Industry Marketing Manager – Healthcare at GS1 UK, said:
“When we look at the effectiveness of working practices in healthcare, they can sometimes seem a world away from those of other sectors such as retail. When a customer visits a supermarket with a loyalty card, a record of purchase history is maintained which enables the retailer to provide highly relevant, personalised experiences for that specific customer. Yet the record kept of our hospital interactions, the care we receive and the products involved, can be so vague and disjointed.
“The DoH recently released the second wave of its technology fund aimed at making hospitals safer and more efficient. We hope that this, combined with the guidance published in the recent eProcurement Strategy, will lead to the widespread implementation of inexpensive and readily-available technologies that make use of scanning and bar coding to help transform the delivery of care for NHS patients.”