Patients can get condition specific information at the touch of a button, thanks to one small but significant change made to hospital leaflets.

Scannable square barcodes, commonly known as QR codes, have now been added to all patient leaflets published on Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust’s website.

This means that, simply by scanning a leaflet’s code with a QR reader installed on a mobile phone or tablet, a person can download a copy of the information straight to their device whilst they are still in the clinic.

Jackie Wileman, Senior Patient Experience Officer for the Trust, explains:

“Patient information is vital in helping people who are receiving hospital care to not only understand their condition, but to give advice on self care and preparing to come into hospital, for example.

“We have largely relied on giving out paper leaflets in the past, but now we have added these special codes to our online information, it means getting your own electronic copy is as simple as just tapping a button.

“This type of instant access means it’s easy for patients or their loved ones to always have information to hand, but it’s also helpful when staff are seeing patients in clinic, to be able to go through the contents with them and then for the patient to be able to take away a copy with a simple scan of the barcode.

“Once downloaded, the leaflet content is able to be changed to large print or translated into one of 100 different languages, meaning it becomes more accessible to a much larger audience. Working in this way should also help to reduce our printing costs over time, too.”

QR scanners can be downloaded via the iStore or Google Play. The full list of leaflets featuring QR codes can be found at www.hey.nhs.uk/patient-leaflets/