Digital Health and Care Wales (DHCW) has said that live testing of the national Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) is to begin soon.
The first phase will be begin with the service being offered to patients at the Lakeside Medical Centre GP practice and Wellington Road community pharmacy in Rhyl.
Andrew Evans, the chief pharmaceutical officer for Wales, said the work will get underway “shortly”.
It is aimed at moving the country’s health service away from a paper based to a digital process, with prescriptions being sent electronically from a GP practice to pharmacy of the patient’s choice. It is part of the Digital Medicines Transformation Portfolio.
Evans commented: “The EPS programme is part of a wider commitment by Welsh Government to introduce digital medicines management and e-prescribing in all hospitals and primary care settings in Wales through the Digital Medicines Transformation Portfolio.”
He added: “It is critical that these changes are introduced carefully and safely, the move to live testing for EPS is a significant step for the programme.”
Important milestone
Jenny Pugh-Jones, senior responsible officer, primary care EPS programme, said: To be able to begin live testing an EPS service is an important milestone and we are working closely with colleagues in pharmacies and GP practices, along with all pharmacy system and GP system suppliers in Wales and our colleagues in NHS England, NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership and Digital Health and Care Wales to make this happen.
“We are in the early stages of the journey to deliver an EPS in Wales and are looking forward to being able to start delivering the service in a phased roll out across Wales before the end of the year.”
DHCS said that providers of IT systems for GPs and pharmacies are working on the delivery of the EPS. In June two companies, PharmacyX and Titan PMR, received funding as part of the programme.
