Two sites in Rhyl are now the first to use the new electronic prescription service in Wales.
This has been financially supported by the Community Pharmacy System Innovation Fund – created and managed by our organisation in partnership with the Digital Medicines Transformation Portfolio (DMTP), which has provided grants to suppliers of pharmacy systems.
Patients in Rhyl are the first in Wales to benefit from a new electronic prescription service (EPS), which allows GPs to send prescriptions securely online to the patient’s choice of community pharmacy, without the need for a paper form.
The new service makes the prescribing and dispensing of medicines for patients and healthcare professionals easier, safer and more efficient.
The service brings benefits to patients, GP surgeries, pharmacies and the environment, saving up to 40 million paper forms from being printed each year.
Prescriptions can be tracked from the surgery to the pharmacy and patients will no longer need to visit the surgery to pick up a repeat prescription form as it will be sent directly to their chosen pharmacy. It will also simplify the reimbursement process for community pharmacies.
Our organisation has played a vital role in its roll out through coordinating the Community Pharmacy System Innovation Fund – where we’ve managed the fund and award process. This has been in collaboration with DTMP, which is hosted by Digital Health and Care Wales.
This has helped suppliers of community pharmacy systems to develop their systems to use EPS and receive the electronic transfer of prescriptions. The Community Pharmacy System Innovation Fund also lets applicants submit bids for financial support to deliver innovations that will result in paperless dispensing and integration with the new NHS Wales app.
The new service is currently in a live testing phase, ahead of a phased roll out across Wales as quickly and safely as possible from January 2024.
Our Chief Executive Officer, Cari-Anne Quinn, said:
“It’s fantastic to see the direct impact of the Community Pharmacy System Innovation Fund on pharmacists and people accessing prescriptions in Wales. We’re so pleased that its roll out has begun and we can make prescribing more environmentally and economically efficient whilst also making the process easier for people picking up prescriptions from their local pharmacies.”
Health and Social Services Minister, Eluned Morgan MS, said:
“We are at the start of an exciting digital transformation that will completely change the way prescriptions are managed in primary care, streamlining a process that has not changed in decades.
“Electronic prescriptions will make a huge difference to the NHS and patients and this is a major milestone in our journey towards digitising every prescription in every healthcare setting across Wales."
Learn more about the Community Pharmacy System Innovation Fund.
