Planning for GS1: watch the e-procurement awareness webinar

Earlier this year, the Department of Health published its e-procurement strategy, which mandated the use of GS1 standards throughout the NHS. GS1 standards enable globally unique identification for items in the supply chain.

‘All trusts need to appoint a GS1 lead to help develop a GS1 standards adoption plan by 2015’

This mandate requires every item that enters a hospital to be identified with a GS1 code, creating a shared language for the exchange of information between trading partners.

But the benefits offered through introducing the standards are not limited to back-end processes in the supply chain – each item can be verified at every step of its hospital lifecycle through barcode scans, right up to a GS1 code on a patient’s wristband.

• More on e-procurement in the NHS

All items, such as surgical instruments, medicines and food, can then be scanned at the point of being administered to a patient. This means all activities can be referenced and verified against an electronic health record, ensuring the right patient receives the right treatment at the right time.

Furthermore, suppliers will be required to enter all their product data into a GS1 certified datapool and the NHS will receive all product data via the Global Data Synchronisation Network (GDSN) – an industry-wide platform for secure synchronisation of accurate data between trading partners.

While this explains the “what” of the new procurement requirements, trusts now need to develop a plan to support the “how”.

• Sign up to watch the eProcurement awareness webinar

Appointing a GS1 lead

Most hospitals already use GS1 standards to some extent; they may be present within a particular system or department, for example, and one or two people might have knowledge of them and what their purpose is.

However, the e-procurement strategy mandates the use of the standards throughout hospitals, which means greater understanding of concepts such as unique identification and datapools are now necessary for appropriate members of staff across multiple departments.

In order to introduce and oversee this programme of change, the strategy sets out that all trusts need to appoint a GS1 lead to help develop a GS1 standards adoption plan by 2015.

It is important for this lead to generate a firm baseline knowledge of GS1 standards and the requirements of the strategy, so they can allocate the appropriate level of resource at each stage of development, and identify areas for prioritisation to suit the specific hospital’s circumstances.

Furthermore, the plan will need to be overseen by a senior management steering group, to ensure it receives the support it needs to be driven through to full adoption.

Alaster Purchase is chief operating officer of GS1 UK