Fears over safer blood bag costs

A new bar-code system to prevent potentially fatal errors in identifying blood bags, launched this week, could cost hospitals millions of pounds to implement.

The system will be controlled by a new national computer network which the National Blood Service plans to introduce. But many hospitals will need new equipment costing up to pounds 20m to read the new labels.

The blood centre which covers London and the South-east last weekend became the first to use the new computer, called Pulse, and the bar codes. But the question of how hospitals will fund the switch is unresolved, prompting fears that delay in a nationwide launch will hinder efforts to improve safety.

Philip Hunt, director of the National Association of Health Authorities and Trusts, said: "Any improvement in the blood service has got to be welcomed. But it indicates yet another cost pressure on NHS hospitals."

The new 14-digit system is needed because the current six-digit codes mean that most regional centres will be soon forced to use the same numbers within a 12-month period, increasing the risk of errors in handling. Giving patients the wrong blood in transfusion can prove fatal and a 1994 report in the British Medical Journal pointed to 111 incidents between 1990 and 1991, with six deaths.

The new standard was developed over five years by the International Society for Blood Transfusion (ISBT). But Peter Gibson, who has developed its use for the South Thames blood centre, said the decision to switch could not be made by the National Blood Service unilaterally: "It does mean that hospitals need to change their equipment scanners ... As the NHS is funded by the public, it has to be approved by the Department of Health. That decision is some way ahead."