Before Scan4Safety deployment begins, organisations need solid foundations in place. Taking time to address standards compliance, governance arrangements, and organisational readiness at the outset, reduces implementation risk and helps ensure the technology delivers its full potential.
Data standards
Scan4Safety is built on data standards such as the GS1 global standards — which are identification systems used across retail, logistics, and supply chains worldwide. These standards provide a universal language for identifying products, patients, locations, and staff.
The key GS1 identifiers used in Scan4Safety are the Global Trade Item Number (GTIN), which uniquely identifies products and is encoded in barcodes on product packaging; the Global Location Number (GLN), which identifies physical locations including wards, theatres, and storage areas; and the Global Service Relation Number (GSRN), which identifies individuals including patients and staff.
GS1 UK provides guidance and support for healthcare organisations at healthcare.gs1uk.org.
For blood products specifically, ISBT 128 is the recognised international standard for the identification of medical products of human origin, and is used in blood product tracking rather than standard GS1 identifiers. Organisations implementing blood tracking should seek guidance from NHS Blood and Transplant on the appropriate standards for their specific use case.
NHS organisations are required to adopt GS1 standards as part of their compliance with NHS data standards.
Governance arrangements
Effective governance provides oversight and accountability throughout implementation.
The core governance structure for Scan4Safety implementation typically includes a programme board with executive-level oversight that meets monthly or bi-monthly, a project team that coordinates operational delivery and meets at least weekly during active implementation, and a clinical reference group that provides clinical input to workflow design and implementation decisions. Clear terms of reference, defined roles and responsibilities, and a risk register from the outset support effective governance.
Assessing readiness
Before beginning implementation, it is worth assessing your organisation’s readiness across four dimensions.
Non-urgent advice: Digital infrastructure
Does your organisation have sufficient WiFi coverage in the clinical areas where scanning will take place? Are there appropriate devices available for scanning, or will procurement be required? Are the necessary system integrations technically feasible?
Non-urgent advice: Data
Is your product master data accurate and current? Are your location identifiers configured correctly? Is your patient identification data reliable?
Non-urgent advice: Organisational readiness
Is there executive sponsorship in place? Have clinical champions been identified? Is there capacity within the organisation to manage an implementation programme?
Non-urgent advice: Supplier readiness
Do your key suppliers barcode their products to GS1 standards? Where they do not, what is the plan for managing non-compliant items or driving supplier compliance?
Technical infrastructure
Scan4Safety requires appropriate technical infrastructure to function reliably. Key requirements include:
- Comprehensive WiFi coverage – in all areas where scanning will take place — infrastructure gaps are a leading cause of workarounds and non-compliance.
- Appropriate scanning hardware – which may include handheld scanners, mobile devices, or fixed scanners depending on the clinical context.
- Barcode and wristband printers – to generate GS1-compliant patient wristbands and product labels at the point of care, supporting print-on-demand workflows that reduce labelling errors.
- System integration – between scanning software and clinical and procurement systems
- Sufficient IT support capacity – to maintain the system and respond to technical issues during and after deployment.
Interoperability and future use cases
Scan4Safety delivers greatest value when scanning systems work effectively with the clinical and operational systems around them. Planning for interoperability at the outset — rather than retrofitting connections later — avoids costly reconfigurations and makes it easier to extend scanning into new clinical areas over time.
Internal interoperability considerations include how your inventory management system will connect with electronic patient records, how scanning data will flow to financial and procurement systems, and how point-of-care scanning data will link to patient records to support clinical documentation and audit.
External interoperability considerations include data submission to national registries such as the Medical Device Outcomes Registry, integration with national platforms such as the NHS Federated Data Platform, and alignment with NHS data standards to ensure your data can be used and shared consistently.
When selecting systems and planning integrations, it is worth thinking beyond your immediate use case. An architecture designed with future applications in mind — such as medicines management or blood tracking — is less likely to require significant rework as your Scan4Safety programme matures. Engaging your IT and digital teams early, alongside clinical and procurement colleagues, supports joined-up decision-making at this stage.
DCB 0129 and DCB 0160 clinical risk standards
Any health IT system used in patient care, including scanning and inventory management solutions, must comply with NHS clinical safety standards DCB 0160 and DCB 0129. These standards require manufacturers and deploying organisations to demonstrate that clinical risks associated with health IT systems have been identified, assessed and managed appropriately. When procuring or deploying Scan4Safety technology, trusts should ensure that suppliers hold a DCB 0129 Clinical Safety Case and that the trust completes its own DCB 0160 assessment as part of deployment governance.
Patient identification standards
Accurate patient identification is fundamental to safe scanning. In NHS in-patient settings, patients are typically identified using a wristband bearing a barcode that encodes their NHS Number. DCB1077: AIDC for Patient Identification defines how to encode NHS approved patient identifiers into a two-dimensional barcode. It sets out the NHS standard for patient wristbands, requires that wristbands include a scannable barcode of the NHS Number, ensuring consistent, machine-readable patient identification across NHS organisations.
Compliance with this standard is an important foundation for any trust planning to introduce point-of-care scanning. Organisations should ensure their patient administration systems can generate and print DCB1077-compliant wristbands reliably, and should plan for backup processes for patients who cannot wear standard wristbands — such as neonates or patients with skin conditions. For example, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital uses photo ID cards on its long-stay ward, with the patient’s barcode placed on the card for nursing staff to scan, maintaining the same identification assurance where wristbands are not practical..
Data quality
Scan4Safety depends on accurate, consistent data. Poor data quality undermines the benefits of scanning and can create new risks. Key data domains include product master data with accurate GTINs and product descriptions, location data with standardised identifiers, and patient data with reliable NHS Number capture and verification.
Clear data ownership and governance arrangements, with defined processes for maintaining data quality as products, locations, and staff change, are essential from the outset.