Supporting COVID-19 PPE Stock Management at Major NHS Foundation Trust

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, NHS Supply Chain has collaborated with a major NHS Foundation Trust to track and manage stocks of vital personal protective equipment (PPE).

The NHS Supply Chain Solutions Implementation Team supported Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust to set up a process to monitor the movement of PPE.

The Customer

Royal Papworth has treated over 200 COVID-19 positive patients, and approached NHS Supply Chain to collaborate on using the eDC Gold application to manage their PPE stock, track it to their wards and produce accurate reports on stock holding and product usage data.

The Problem

• No single point of inbound PPE stock volume across ordering platforms
• No way to audit PPE stock movements to point of use
• No data to inform ordering profile.

The Results

• Effective inventory control of 500,000 PPE items (continuing post-COVID-19)
• Audit trail of PPE stock movements
• Fewer need for emergency supplies as all stock was visible at all times
• Able to build a more accurate usage model based on issued stock.

The Platform

eDC is NHS Supply Chain’s order capture system for 10% of NHS England and NHS Improvement’s consumables spend across 140 acute NHS trusts.

eDC Gold is the inventory management module of eDC, managing £50 million of trust inventory in 32 acute hospitals, and both applications can be managed using the same handheld device.