Potential Savings

The scale of equipment loss varies from Trust to Trust but a recent initiative by Bradford Teaching Hospitals revealed that annually £100,000 worth of equipment, including crutches, walking frames and Tens pain relief machines, was not returned to Bradford Royal Infirmary and St Luke’s Hospital.

Challenges

The challenges surrounding the issue of equipment and stock management include:

• Understanding stock levels
• Accurately checking-in and checking-out equipment
• Tracking equipment
• Recovering equipment

Solution

When equipment is checked-out using Therapy Manager an entry is placed in the Patient Summary indicating what was given to the patient, by whom, when it was given to the patient and the barcode of the asset. Thereby ensuring that there is a clear audit trail of allocation to the patient.

Business Case

The building blocks of a business case around lost equipment are likely to be:

• Capital cost of the lost assets
• Reduced stock levels
• Reduced administrative time chasing assets
• Reduced clinical time checking out/chasing/finding equipment

Based on previous projects the payback period on an initiative of this type is likely to be less than 1 Year.