UK NHS to install “voluntary but essential” product bar-coding by end-2012
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
The UK’s Department of Health has announced plans to introduce a central product bar-coding system to the National Health Service (NHS) by the end of next year. While the system would be voluntary, rather than mandatory, for manufacturers as previously recommended by the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC), the government is nevertheless emphatic that product bar-coding “will become essential” for all suppliers to the NHS.