King's College Hospital – Dental has been named the UK's first Healthcare Centre of Excellence by GS1 UK, the independent not-for-profit supply chain standards and solutions organisation. The award was granted in recognition of patient improvements achieved by implementing a bar coded 'track-and-trace' system.

Installed by GS1 UK solution provider Meditrax, King's College Hospital Dental now has much more visibility over 16,000 surgical instruments it uses every week. By using a unique identification code for some pieces of equipment, staff are able to locate items quickly and easily. With some specialist surgical tools costing hundreds of pounds to replace each time they are misplaced, it has also helped reduce costs significantly.

The Meditrax system also provides a traceable log of the sterilisation process, considerably speeding up the decontamination process. It also enhances patient safety by ensuring contaminated instruments are not reused or can be recalled if necessary.

Roger Lamb, Healthcare Manager, GS1 UK, said: 'We hope this will be a catalyst for change for more hospitals to adopt the innovative application of GS1 standards and are tremendously pleased to be able to award Centre of Excellence status to King's College Hospital Dental.'