‘Axe the Fax’ pledge for Leeds Teaching Hospital

Leeds Teaching Hospital NHS Trust has launched an ‘Axe the Fax’ campaign to identify all fax machines within the hospital estate and remove 95 per cent of the machines by 1 January 2019.

The campaign will identify all machines within the hospitals, their location, phone numbers and what they are being used for before looking at how they can be replaced with more innovative and cost-effective processes.

As part of his keynote speech at the NHS Innovation Expo, Health Secretary Matt Hancock labelled outdated IT systems, particularly fax machines, as ‘downright dangerous’. Owning 340 fax machines, Leeds Teaching Hospital is using Managed Print Service (MPS) devices and in the period between April and August 2018, 47,905 were sent electronically rather than via fax machine.

Richard Corbridge, Chief Digital and Information Officer at the trust, said: “We don’t underestimate the enormity of the challenge to remove all the machines in such a short time frame, but we simply cannot afford to continue living in the dark ages. The campaign aims to empower staff rather than disarm them and so far the feedback has been positive, staff are recognising that on the one hand we have hugely innovative technology being implemented in the Trust and on the other we have technology that hasn’t existed for decades in other industries.”