Pharmacists’ views on improvements to the Electronic Prescription Service sought

NHS Digital wants pharmacists and pharmacy staff to say what enhancements to the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) they would like to see prioritised.

The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) have supported NHS Digital in launching a survey, which covers potential improvements to the EPS, such as quicker connection speed, including delayed prescribing in the service, alerts for high-priority prescriptions, and medicine synchronisation.

NHS Digital also wants pharmacy teams to suggest their own enhancements to the EPS.

All pharmacy staff can now take part in this work by completing the online EPS enhancements survey.

PSNC and NHS Digital would like to hear the views of all community pharmacy team members, so multiple members of staff at each pharmacy can complete the survey if they wish. Staff at multiple head offices may also complete the survey in relation to specific pharmacies.

This survey will help NHS Digital and PSNC to explore how best to prioritise the enhancement of EPS. This should ultimately benefit pharmacy team members and patients, so PSNC is encouraging all staff to take part and share their views.

Contractors and their teams can also visit PSNC to find out how to get more involved with IT developments.

This is the first in a short series of pharmacy IT surveys being planned by PSNC, NHS Digital and others. Further surveys will be published later in the year. Future topics will include pharmacy system preferences, and digital set-up within the pharmacy.