Countess of Chester cut A&E bed waits from four hours to 150 minutes with tagging

What was changed

The BBC reported in December 2017 that the Countess of Chester Hospital, a major acute hospital, had tagged patients, staff and equipment as part of a drive to speed up access to beds, installing about 4,000 sensors that let the hospital match patients to beds.

The sensors feed a control centre where staff see a real-time picture of tagged equipment, staff badges and patient wristbands. Chief executive Tony Chambers said that where a series of phone calls had been needed to source equipment or check on a patient's scan, the coordination centre could provide the information at a glance, helping patients reach the right bed and the right specialist first time. Data-driven alerts go to handheld devices and the hospital's bed turnaround team, who can clear a bed the moment a patient is discharged.

The system was already in operation at Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust and, per the hospital, is used to manage around 50% of acute beds in the USA.

Why it worked

Phone-call coordination could not keep pace with bed demand in a busy acute hospital.

Real-time location tagging turned bed and equipment management into glanceable data.

Discharge-triggered alerts let the turnaround team clear beds the moment they free up.

What can be applied

Real-time location data replaces coordination by phone call — a glance at a control centre beats a chain of inquiries.

Aftermath

Bosses said the technology was already improving patient flow across the hospital; the same system operates at Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust and manages about half of acute beds in the USA.