Dismissing government claims on cost savings
and past success as "purely anecdotal", anti-identity card
campaigner and head of NO2ID Phil Booth said that there was little
evidence that Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and bar codes
would fix the NHS's claimed £2 billion cost of mistaken
identity.
"At present errors, many of which are caused
by getting the patient identity wrong, cost the NHS around £2
billion in extra bed days," said a statement from the Department of
Health on the proposal to use the identifiers. "Auto-identification
could make a significant impact on this cost."
"I'm very suspicious of the £2 billion figure
on losses," said Booth. "Precisely how much of this is down to
misidentification of patients? And if it's so much, then why the
hell haven't they fixed it before now? If they gave an accurate
figure for extra bed-time due to misidentification, would it reveal
that the cost/benefit really isn't there?"
The Department of Health has agreed a set of
standards on which all future NHS ID systems will operate, and has
released a statement saying that the NHS and patients will benefit
from bar coding technology.
"This document sets out a clear case for the
use of auto identification and capture technology by industry and
the NHS in order to save lives, reduce mistakes and improve
efficiency," said Health Minister Lord Hunt.
"By wearing a bar-coded wristband a bar code
reader can be used to verify the patient's identity at any time,
and be an extra check that the right patient is about to received
the right care," said the Department of Health statement.
The Department announced a deal with GS1UK to
use the GS1 coding system for bar codes and RFID tags. It is not
mandating the use of tags, but is recommending them and
recommending the adoption of a common technical standard.
As an example of good practice, the statement
singled out Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham, which has used RFID
bracelets to identify patients. RFID is still a controversial
technology when used in human identification, because many systems
have been shown to beam a person's identity to chip readers other
than those belonging to operator of the system.
Booth, though, said that the whole operation
exemplified what he sees as the current Government's apparent
desire to "RFID everything in sight".
"I'm still not convinced that even a
single-purpose bar-coded wristband plus printers, scanners, etc.
would be more cost effective or risk-reducing than redesigning the
bands themselves to be filled in more legibly," said Booth. "Has
the Department of Health done proper comparative trials? The
Heartlands Trust stuff quoted is just anecdotal, and the case study
is about supply chain, not healthcare. It is really great to hear
we're going to be treating patients like boxes of bandages and
bottles of pills."
The Department released the information about
the technology when launching a new report called Coding for
Success: simple technology for safer patient care.
