Regions

The electronic prescription service for England allows patients to nominate a preferred pharmacy to which their prescription will be sent automatically.

At Cegedim Rx, we are working to help pharmacies use this new focus to their advantage. By securing nominations, forward thinking pharmacies will be equipped to build renewed patient loyalty and offer additional services to meet requirements.

In March 2011 Cegedim Rx became the first PMR provider to gain full rollout approval and is currently rolling out the functionality in its Pharmacy Manager system. Nexphase received full rollout approval in September 2011.

We are working hard, both with pharmacies and with Connecting for Health, to ensure that the electronic prescription service brings maximum benefits to community pharmacy.

The basic concept of the ePharmacy programme in Scotland is to provide electronic transmission of prescriptions and facilitate closer working between doctors and pharmacists.

Cegedim Rx provides all three phases of the ePharmacy programme to its customers in Scotland.

Minor Ailment Scheme (eMAS)

With the minor ailment scheme in place pharmacists are able to give NHS medicines free of charge to patients, reducing the need for patients to visit their doctor for a prescription for a minor ailment. As part of the scheme patients register with their choice of community pharmacy which becomes their first port of call for minor ailments.

Acute Medication Service (eAMS)

The acute medication service was the first electronic prescription service in the UK. It works by GPs submitting prescriptions for acute conditions electronically to the same online system used by pharmacists. Patients still have their paper prescription which they take to a pharmacy of their choice and the pharmacist simply scans the prescription barcode, downloading the prescription information directly into their PMR system.

The eAMS aims to reduce the risk of errors between GPs and pharmacists, deliver improvements such as the use of universal codes for medicines and boost efficiency.

Chronic Medication Service (eCMS)

The last phase, the chronic medication service, allows patients with long-term conditions to register with the community pharmacy of their choice and receive pharmaceutical care as part of a shared care agreement between the patient, pharmacist and GP.

The service aims to use pharmacists’ skills more effectively and improve patient safety and medicines wastage by ensuring patients receive the right medication at the right time

In Wales the electronic transmission of prescriptions is delivered through the 2DRx project. This works by ‘capturing’ prescription information from GP systems and printing this as a 2D barcode onto the prescription. Once printed, patients can take the prescription to their community pharmacist, who then scans the barcode, automatically retrieving the patient and drug information into the dispensing system.

2DRx is designed to rule out manual errors by avoiding the rekeying of prescription information. It is also expected to help speed up dispensing time and improve data quality.

NHS Wales has approved the 2DRx functionality in both Pharmacy Manager and Nexphase; it has been successfully rolled out across the country.