The National Patient Safety Agency has said a technical problem means it is unable to establish whether its target to make sure that all patients in England and Wales have printed wristbands has been met.
In July 2007, the NPSA said it wanted to see all wristbands being printed by 18 July this year, to cut the danger of patients being given the wrong drugs or treatment as a result of poorly written wristbands.
However, a spokesperson told E-Health Insider that a problem with the Central Alerting System run by the Department of Health, which is used to send out patient safety and other alerts, has left it unable to obtain data about compliance.
It is hoping to obtain more data in a few weeks. Although the NPSA normally monitors compliance with its guidelines, it cannot enforce their implementation. The Care Quality Commission will be investigating compliance as part of its annual assessments.
However, EHI understands that it will be at least another year before there is any chance of compliance being reviewed and any action taken, indicating that the deadline was largely irrelevant.
A spokesperson for the CQC said: “Every year the CQC assesses compliance against core standards including patient safety. Because the deadline for the printed patient wristbands was July 2009, it has missed this year’s annual review.
"It could be something that we could use to check compliance with the relevant core standard within the 2009-10 assessments.”
Meeting the target required trusts to ensure that patient wristbands are all printed from the hospital demographic system, such as the patient administration system, at the patient’s bedside in all general acute and community settings.
The NPSA said that over a 12 month period, from February 2006 to January 2007, it received 24,382 reports of patients being mismatched to their care. It is estimated that more than 2,900 of these related to wristbands and their use.
A spokesperson for the CQC said: “We are currently developing our priorities for patient safety and are working closely with the NPSA to develop this.”
The spokesperson added: “Based on its evaluation from its audits of compliance, we’ll be in a better position to see how this particular issue of patient wristbands fits within our wider strategic aims and objectives from 2010 onwards.”
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