National Health Service – U.K.
The U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS) introduced supply chain tracking and traceability after a series of high-profile cases underscored the need to strengthen patient safety to create transparency across the system.
Starting with six hospitals trusts, the NHS set out to increase the traceability of their supply chain, enabled by global standards, to improve patient safety, increase clinical productivity and realize operational efficiencies.
The NHS highlighted the integration of clinical and supply chain staff as a key condition for the successful implementation of supply chain infrastructure. Clinician leadership was a key factor in decisions to standardize product use linked to best outcomes for patients.
Since the adoption of global standards, the NHS has seen:
- A projection of £1.5 billion in inventory savings when supply chain infrastructure is scaled across all 154 trusts
- Each hospital trust demonstrated an average savings of £2.4 million realized from inventory optimization and clinician time savings, redirected from managing supply chain processes to patient care—on average, the equivalent of 16 full-time staff per trust
- A return-on-investment of 4:1 in inventory savings has been documented in the six trusts. The ROI is expected to be much higher once clinician time savings and patient safety outcomes are taken into account
- 93% of implants are now being accurately tracked, a critical asset which can be leveraged in the event of a product recall
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