Hospital wristbands must be standardised

To combat this problem, the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) has issued new advice highlighting the need to standardise the information on wristbands and their design, as well as the processes used to produce and check them.

Helen Glenister, deputy chief executive at the NPSA said: “Wristbands are an important safety check in patient identification but they do not take away the need for clinicians to check identification directly with patients.

In cases where patients are unable to provide their own details – because they are critically ill, unconscious, confused or cannot communicate – wristbands provide a vital backup.”