Doctors’ pagers to be replaced by mobile apps

HOSPITAL doctors’ emergency ‘bleepers’ are to become a thing of the past. Pagers are to be banished from the NHS within three years, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has announced.

He says staff must use mobile phones and apps instead in an effort to cut costs, improve communication and to free up doctors and nurses.

The NHS uses more than one in ten of the world’s remaining pagers, with 130,000 of the devices costing £6.6million a year. Replacing them with mobile software could save £2.7million a year.

The technology offers only one-way communication and doctors can’t gauge how urgently they are needed or which patients to prioritise.

Mr Hancock – who banned NHS fax machines and letters in favour of email – said the health service must ‘harness the huge potential of technology’ to save lives.

NHS trusts have been told they have until the end of 2021 to get rid of pagers. But they will be allowed to keep a number of the devices for emergency situations, such as when wi-fi fails.