The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 271 No 7260 p139
2 August 2003

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All community pharmacies in Scotland will be connected to the NHSnet soon

All community pharmacies in Scotland will be connected to the NHSnet within the next two years. Pharmacies will start to be connected in October this year, and the roll-out of the programme across Scotland is scheduled to take 18 months.

Alison Strath, of the pharmacy strategy implementation team at the Scottish Executive, told The Journal: "The Scottish Executive has agreed to meet the set-up and running costs of NHSnet."

The plan is for NHSnet to be installed on existing pharmacy computer systems. Following a trial of stand-alone terminals, and consultation with the Scottish Pharmaceutical General Council, it was decided that an integrated system is more useful for pharmacists. "The view is that, wherever possible, it is best to use the current pharmacy system," Ms Strath said.

The next step will be for every pharmacy to be visited and surveyed to find out if its computer system has sufficient hardware to support NHSnet. This will be undertaken by the Common Services Agency on behalf of the Scottish Executive. NHSnet connections will require 256k links.

"Most pharmacies have got hardware capable of supporting NHSnet," Ms Strath explained. However, if technical problems are identified during the site visit then the cost of new or upgraded hardware will be funded by the Scottish Executive.

Independent community pharmacies will be connected via a "closed user group". Ms Strath said that this will include a firewall for a number of pharmacies rather than providing a separate firewall for each pharmacy. It is hoped that multiple pharmacies will be connected through existing corporate networks with firewalls at a head office level. Discussions are currently under way between the Scottish Executive and multiple chains about this.

Ongoing running costs will be funded by the Scottish Executive. It also plans to fund some training about NHSnet. "We are currently looking at training for pharmacists. Some people are used to using systems such as e-mail so we will look at a range of options to support pharmacists," commented Ms Strath.

The first regions to be connected will be Tayside, Fife and the Forth Valley. In addition, some modifications will be made to the system that has been piloted in Ayrshire and Arran to bring it in line with the national specification.

Frank Owens, chairman of the Scottish Pharmaceutical General Council, told The Journal that he was delighted to hear the news of this latest initiative. "I recognise the significant investment being made by the Scottish Executive in linking community pharmacies to the NHSnet. This should go some considerable way to demonstrating the commitment of the Scottish Executive to supporting community pharmacy in the delivery of 'The right medicine'.

"Initiatives such as these will be important in providing the tools with which to meet the pharmaceutical care needs of our patients in the future and in facilitating closer working ties with other members of the primary health care team," he said.