NHS pagers to be ‘purged’ as apps take over

NHS doctors may all soon be barred from using pagers and encouraged to switch to a Whatsapp-style messaging system instead.

On Tuesday, MPS will vote on a private member’s Bill that would ban pagers in the health service, backed by Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary.

More than 100,000 pagers are still in use across hospitals in the UK, and cost an estimated £6.6 million a year, according to a report by Commontime, the digital consulting company.

Mr Hancock told The Daily Telegraph: “We’ve axed the fax, now we want to purge the pager. There’s no excuse for antediluvian technologies in the NHS and I am determined to bring our health and care system into the modern age – for the benefit of patients, staff and the taxpayer.”

West Suffolk, his local hospital, was among the first to phase out pagers, and has replaced almost all of them with a new Whatsapp-style app called Medic Bleep. The app allows doctors to exchange messages and see when they have been delivered and read.

A trial using Medic Bleep to replace pagers at West Suffolk found the app saves nurses more than 20 minutes a shift, and doctors more than 50 minutes.

Alan Mak, the Tory MP, has drafted the National Health Service (Prohibition of Fax Machines and Pagers) Bill. Its sponsors include Norman Lamb, the former health minister.

It will put into law the Government’s commitment to “digitalise” the NHS, phasing out pagers and faxing in hospitals and trusts by the end of 2021.

Mr Mak said: “As patients become ever more used to living in an interconnected world, the NHS must abolish outdated technology.”

More than one in 10 of the world’s pagers is used in the NHS. Pagers are seen as a secure and more reliable way to communicate, because they operate on radio frequencies as opposed to mobile or internet networks.

It estimated the NHS could save up to £2.7 million a year by replacing pagers with smartphone applications.

Last year, Mr Hancock banned hospital trusts from buying fax machines and ordered them to be phased out completely by April 2020.

NHS Trusts will be required to invest in new technology to replace outdated systems, using £200million of government funding set aside for modernisation earlier this year.

The NHS is the world’s leading buyer of fax machines, with more than 8,000 machines in service.