Electronic prescription service (EPS) - good or bad for you?

I agree, this service does not seem user friendly and looks to me as being phased out.

You do raise a good point Paul. I think the benefits of electronic transfer of prescriptions (ETP) are supposed to include saving time visiting the GP to re-order your repeats, and might save a bit of time waiting at the chemist's. With regards to having a list of medication available in an emergency, normally doctors in hospital or A/E will try and get in contact with the GP if they cannot get all of the details from a patient (such as drug name, dose, frequency etc). There's no reason why they can't contact the chemist for example on weekends or evenings when GP surgeries are not open. Keeping your own list may not be a bad idea. Don't feel like you have to enrol in such a scheme. I have only seen it in practice a handful of times.

Tarun (hospital pharmacist)

Hi Paul, there are some patient testimonals and videos on the EPS website which might help you understand how the service can benefit patients and carers:

http://systems.hscic.gov.uk/eps/patients/quotes

http://systems.hscic.gov.uk/eps/patients/films.

Thanks for that. That looks much better than the outdated information I found previously, I take back what I said up above. I see it's the Connecting for Health that's being phased out not the EPS, my apologies.

Hi Paul and Tarun

I thought I would outline a few benefits for patients who are using the EPS currently across different parts of the country.

-EPS is very much patient choice and while you have to agree to ‘nominate’ a specific pharmacy (you can do this at any EPS pharmacy or at your GP practice) you are free to change or remove your nomination at any time.

-We have seen lots of patients receive their electronic prescriptions near to where they work or live without the need to collect their paper prescription from the GP practice. This is particularly convenient for patients who work in a different city/town to where they live.

-Some patients have been set up on repeat dispensing or batch prescribing, if you receive regular repeat prescriptions that do not change frequently then your GP can send a ‘batch to your nominated pharmacy and you just collect them at the usual regular intervals e.g. every month if you are on monthly repeats. This means you do not have to re order at the GP site each month or run out of medications as your pharmacy has access to them in advance of you requiring them. Your GP will decide if you are suitable for batch prescribing.

-As the pharmacy often receives your electronic repeat prescriptions in advance, they are able to order in any out of stock items, hopefully reducing the amount of times you may have to return to collect items owing that the pharmacy may not have in stock.

I hope this has given you a little more information as to the benefits for patients, and will help you to make an informed choice as to whether this will be of interest to you or not.

Fiona McDonald

Clinical and Patient Lead

Electronic prescription service,

Health and Social care Information centre.

Ok, downside number one: It's only when you pick the meds up at the chemist you find out they got it wrong. With the old system, you could get mistakes corrected in the surgery.

Downside number two: it's another opportunity for the government to spy on you - knowing what meds you're taking and how often.

I'm just at the point of getting regular meds (for blood pressure due to all the stress from the NHS et al) and maybe I should be on antidepressants for the same reason (post-traumatic stress of having the NHS abduct my mother). The idea's ok but it's the way it's implemented - if the GP could send info to the pharmacy via simple e-mail, it'd be better.

Paul, I always keep my own list - just because a med is on the paper repeat px doesn't mean to say it's needed. When Mum's gone into hospital I've found they've put her unnecessarily on pain killers, for example, just because they're on the repeat.

Tarun, EPS is not the same as repeat ordering - which in many surgeries can now be done online (via a 'clunky offshoot of patient.info) that doesn't allow you to alter the quantity of the meds or use anything but alphanumeric characters in the 'message' section. It's a pain bothering the GP just to get amounts set either to fit the pack size or to adjust it to a monthly amount.

As for the 'Health and Social Care IC' that's my worst nightmare.

Nothing in it for the patient at all - more HS money wasted. HAd to wait 55mins at our chemist to pick my prescription up. So will try to opt out and get my prescrition the old way.

To confirm - pharmacies print dispensing tokens which look like prescriptions but are white - when this happens a repeat slip is also printed which can then be given to the patient/customer for reordering so you will always have a copy of your current medication list.

While this may not seem appropriate for everyone it saves time, cuts down on the paperwork and may even help patients who forget to seek renewal prescription in good time. It may also avoid errors. Once the pharmacy has a patient's requirements on its computer record then having the meds ready in time must be an improvement for all. Then only when a GP makes a change or introduces a new med will there be a need to update the pharmacy. Specific meds for a short period such as antibiotics can be progressed as normal.

All my family have repeat prescriptions. None of those prescriptions coincide, apart from one or two during the year. The meds come in boxes of either 28, 30, 56 or 60 tablets and the prescriptions rarely take this into account. There is a need here for an agreement between manufacturers and prescribing medics to choose either a set weekly multiple, a month of 30 days or some other figure that will bring about some standard which could then make the whole process simpler. It could also avoid loss; example - when a pharmacist has to cut up a tablet set (reducing 30 to 28, say) and the odd two get added into another prescription with possible oversight from the patient.

Of course nothing is guaranteed; anything that introduces simplification has to have some benefit.

Convenient but very worrying.

At my GP practice you take in your repeat form and then have to go again two days later to pick up the prescription - so EPS sounds much more convenient.

I'm very worried because I only found out about this from a mailshot sent out by a company 200 miles away that wants to be my nominated pharmacy and provides home delivery only. This looks like a serious attack on the local pharmacies and the service they give; you have to read quite carefully to discover that you can ignore this choose EPS with a local pharmacy. This looks like yet another apparently good public service idea that has been hijacked for profit and eventual loss of services.

I'm also somewhat worried by the fact this mailshot targeted me, who have repeat prescriptions. The small print says that my GP did NOT provide my details - so who did? Maybe a coincidence, but I doubt it because I'm the only recipient in the household who got the letter.

Greg (patient)

I'm not sure I like the big brother aspect to this EPS system.  Total I went to the doctors to collect a repeat prescription only to be told it had already been sent to the pharmacy via the EPS. 

Well I never signed up for any electronic service and both the pharamcy and GP surgery deny signing me up as well. 

I find it very creepy that pharmacists have access to the NHS spine and can see what medications you are on, etc.  I also think it is wrong that your prescription/personal details can be sent to any pharmacy without your prior consent. 

In principle EPS seems like a good idea but I imagine as will all government IT projects it will end up being a mess, with lots of mistakes, breaches of data protection and people like myself being signed up against their will. 

I love it!  The doctors send it in right in front of you and it has limited mistakes!!  I think it's a win/win for paitent and doctor!