Using the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS)

Now that the Government have confirmed that the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) is to survive the other cuts to be made to the NHS programme for IT, it is definitely time for pharmacists to get ready for and start using EPS.

If you are not fully ready for EPS Release 2 when it starts in your locality, your pharmacy cannot be nominated by patients to receive and dispense their electronic prescriptions.  If instead patients make an alternative pharmacy their choice for EPS, you will have to subsequently work harder on marketing to get them to re-elect to choose your pharmacy for dispensing, once you are ready for EPS R2.

It seems probable that in addition to the level of competition that each pharmacy has become accustomed to, that once EPS R2 commences, Internet Pharmacies (both local and national) are likely to seek to commence providing NHS dispensing services, providing significant additional competition. Do not underestimate this additional competition.

PSNC are keen (see August 2011 newsletter) that pharmacists get familiar with using EPS NOW, by using R1. This will at the least ensure that every existing patient’s NHS number is automatically stored in your software, making R2 easier to use. A further advantage of using R1 of EPS now is that the first time a prescription is downloaded for a patient, there is a need to link the prescription to the correct patient on your software. If like most pharmacies your patient database has some duplicates, and is not 100% up to date, working with prescriptions from R2 will be much easier by sorting out your database NOW. Finally by using EPS R1, any connectivity issues that may exist between your pharmacy and the NHS spine can be identified now before the issue of EPS becomes “business critical” as R2 of EPS will undoubtedly quickly become.

Do your local GPs know your EPS status, and do you know theirs? If no, this would be a good time to initiate a discussion for mutual benefit. Also check out where your PMR provider is up to with EPS on the Connecting for Health Web site, some PMR providers seem way further forwards with EPS R2 readiness than others.