Scan4Safety@LTHT
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Scan4Safety at Leeds Teaching Hospital NHS Trust: a longitudinal study
IRAS ID
328400
Contact name
Valentina Lichtner
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Leeds
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
N/A, N/A
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Technologies for identification of patients, medications, devices and other items for patient care, such as barcode scanning or RFID (radio-frequency identification), have the potential to improve safety and efficiency, reduce waste and carbon footprint. In 2015-2019 the Department of Health & Social Care run the Scan4Safety programme to support the use of barcoding in NHS hospitals in England, to improve the management of supplies and improve patient safety. No independent evaluation was done of the programme, and lessons learned remain anecdotal. In particular, little is known of the challenges of implementing barcoding systems in hospitals at scale, how to overcome these challenges and how to achieve effective adoption.
Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (LTHT) was a demonstrator site for the Scan4Safety programme. It completed its Scan4Safety implementation – including barcoding and related systems (e.g. for management of inventory) - as part of the DHSC programme in 2019. It continued to develop barcoding related systems and identification technologies, after the end of the official programme, and is currently further building on those developments in view of a new digital hospital planned over the next five years.
This study aims to investigate the experience of adopting barcoding and related technologies at LTHT. The aim is to identify the main challenges and enablers for adoption of these technologies, within a hospital and across the NHS.
We propose to gather data on scan4safety at LTHT, to cover the period of the DHSC sponsored programme (2015-2019) and after the end of the programme, including current ongoing developments. We will interview members of the scan4safety team, the staff responsible for management of supplies, pharmacy management, hospital IT, and clinicians using the systems. We will attend meetings of the scan4safety team. We will also gather documentary evidence (internal reports, video presentations, etc.) produced as part of the scan4safety at LTHT. We will review patient safety incidents reported within the hospital in relation to the supply and management of items. We will carry out rapid ethnographic observations of the systems in use at LTHT, to see how they are used in practice. We will survey patients to gather their views of the use of these technologies. The plan is to carry out these data collection activities periodically, about every three months, for three years, to cover both the history of the programme and its current developments. The patient survey will be distributed both online and on paper. Interviews and meetings will take place by means of videoconferencing tools. The study will lead to development of guidelines, to inform policy and implementations in other hospital contexts.REC name
North East - Tyne & Wear South Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
23/NE/0140
Date of REC Opinion
7 Jul 2023
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion