A new report commissioned by PR and Marketing agency Silver Buck has shown a high number of fax machines are still in use with just over 6 months remaining to the deadline.
In December 2018 Matt Hancock announced a deadline that by April 2020 NHS Trusts should no longer use fax machines. At the time 8,000 fax machines were reportedly in use and Matt Hancock announced an immediate ban on the new purchase of fax machines.
The report from Silver Buck reveals that the trusts with the most fax machines, according to data collected by the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) last year, have collectively axed just 42% of those machines over the past twelve months.
J2 Global a provider of an internet-based fax technology, EMEA Director Scott Wilson said: “The lack of progress amongst NHS trusts, with just six months to go until the government deadline, is indicative of just how challenging axing the fax is.”
“If trusts continue to remove fax machines at this rate, the majority of them won’t be fax-free by 31 March 2020.”
“It’s also important to remember that replacing fax machines generally gets harder the further down the line you get. Trusts start with the easy wins – redundant fax machines and those with low levels of usage. But some fax machines are more important to the way a trust communicates, particularly with external organisations.”
“That’s why it’s so shocking to see that some NHS trusts haven’t even identified a solution for replacing their fax machines. Those trusts need to realise that axing the fax is not simply a case of unplugging your fax on deadline day. It’s much more complicated than that.”
The new FOI request issued by Silver Buck to each of the fourteen trusts that responded to Royal College of Surgeons FOI request declaring they had 200 or more fax machines, two trusts said that they have more fax machines in use now than they did when the RCS FOI was issued in July 2018. The Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust has 251 fax machines (one more than reported in July 2018) whereas the South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has 252 (two more than reported in July 2018).
Some trusts, however, have shown progress. Most notably, Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust which has reduced its number of fax machines by 99%, from 212 to just 3 (for emergency use only).
Meanwhile, Newcastle upon Tyne NHS Foundation Trust, the trust revealed to have the highest number of fax machines by the Royal College of Surgeons FOI report in July last year, has reduced its number of machines by 66%, from 603 to 208.
Leeds Teaching Hospitals, the trust which launched the “Axe the fax” campaign soon after the RCS report was published is still using fax machines.
Sarah Moorhead, Associate Director of Digital Demand, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Axing the fax has been a real challenge and many issues were found than we first imagined. It’s no secret that we would have wanted to remove even more than we have, but we are encouraged that each machine we remove is of massive benefit to waste reduction and progress towards a digital hospital.”
“Our biggest challenge has been getting rid of fax machines that are used to communicate externally. Lots of outside organisations rely on fax machines to communicate with us, and some of them still heavily depend on paper-based solutions where they are yet to start their digital maturity journey.”
“eFax has been a really important tool for us, getting over this hurdle, and it’s part of the reason that we’re still confident of meeting Hancock’s deadline.”
