Are UK hospitals still using pagers?
There is a myth that on-site-pagers are no longer used in UK hospitals. This was originated by a UK politician (at that time) Matt Hancock, that decided that pagers were archaic and must be removed. In fact the NHS trusts were using at least 130,000 pagers: they use more than 1 in 10 of all paging-technology of that type.
Read more about removing pagers directly from the NHS by the UK government and you might be very surprised what they said. The government in that publication went on to cite things like 'only 1 way communication' as a negative feature, along with the 'sharing of data' between staff. Mr. Hancock and friends also cited Mobile Phones as a better alternative. Sadly, as many politicians often are, he was basically wrong. Mobile Phone technology compared to the high power of hospital paging systems and the 'flaky' reception dependent on third party signals of cell phones it is clear that the paging systems will remain for some time in to the future.
Of course, along with the 'shared data' comment looms the theft of that shared data and the inability to protect the data properly, not just limited to the UK government and its departments, but many other business sectors too.
Those 'crash systems' are still there operational within the NHS today. They operate at high on-site power to achieve coverage throughout the hospital (typically 25 watts but can be higher) that remains stable and effective. There will come a time for sure when other technologies actually do 'take over', but for now Mr. Hancock's presumption of gone by 2021 simply created a theory yet to be implemented and other than headlines for the government of the time remains pretty useless.
Pagers are still used in hospitals and healthcare.
It is unlikely that paging systems will cease to be in hospitals any time soon bearing in mind the many newer pager based solutions available today, like those for patients from SOLT Systems. Regular patient paging is still relevant throughout the UK.
Other articles include:
What are pagers used for in hospitals?
Best Hospital Pager System for 2024 (updated)
Published by A B McKenzie, Managing Director of LRS UK. Anthony has extensive experience in paging systems since 2000. (c) LRS UK 2024.