NHS bridges gap in medicines tracking

RFID tags help track medicines

Barts and the London NHS Trust has successfully demonstrated a system for tracking and tracing pharmaceuticals in a live international supply chain.

The Pharma Traceability Pilot (PDF), part of the Building Radio frequency IDentification solutions for the Global Environment (BRIDGE) project, was funded partly by the EU, and conducted by technology providers including GS1 UK, part of the global GS1 organisation that deals with the development of data standards worldwide for supply chain solutions.

The project tracked 15 different drugs from their manufacturing origin in Ireland and the Netherlands to Barts' pharmacy department using GS1 standards, which includes barcodes and electronic communications technology such as radio frequency identification.

The pilot met all current Pharma authentication, track and trace regulations, whilst addressing current supply chain visibility deficiencies faced by the healthcare industry.

"The ability to fully track and trace drugs gives us confidence that the medication we administer to our patients is safe and authentic," said Barts and the London NHS Trust senior principal pharmacist Patrick Martin.

The technology also gave better inventory management and quicker response times for product recalls, said Martin.

GS1 UK chief executive Gary Lynch said the pilot will have a big impact on improving patient safety, reducing the scourge of counterfeit drugs and improving efficiency within the healthcare sector.