Pharmacists should not worry about starting ETP
Tim Donohoe: guidance for pharmacy contractors will be issued shortly |
Pharmacists should not be concerned if they feel that they do not yet know what is happening with electronic transfer of prescriptions, according to Tim Donohoe, group programme director for the National Programme for IT.
Guidance on ETP implementation for pharmacy contractors in England will
be issued by Connecting for Health within the next four to six weeks. “The
guidance will detail what is necessary in terms of becoming compliant
with the service,” said Mr Donohoe. It will tell pharmacists what
they need to do and when. It will advise them to speak to their existing
system suppliers and will provide specific questions to ask suppliers
about their systems. “However, it will be down to individual contractors
to decide if one system is better than another,” Mr Donohoe explained.
The electronic prescription
service implementation strategy, detailing
how ETP will be rolled out, was published by Connecting for Health last
month (PJ, 29 October, p537). “We are confident that roll out will
be complete by the end of 2007,” said Mr Donohoe. He said that
the specific timing of each phase of implementation is beyond CfH’s
control since it is reliant on the capacity of system suppliers. The
speed of roll out is also dependent on primary care trusts issuing smartcards,
which will be used to protect patient data by restricting access to the
system and to the national care record service. Mr Donohoe expects that
transition to release 2 (when software will enable prescriptions to be
digitally signed allowing transition to full ETP) will occur around the
end of 2006.
There are currently about 20 suppliers of prescribing and dispensing
systems, each of which is working on upgrades that will make systems
ETP-compliant. CfH expects to publish a list of ETP-compliant pharmacy
systems for release 1 within the next two weeks. It is likely that system
suppliers will offer an all-in-one package, whereby they will upgrade
a system and offer connectivity to the national programme via a third
party network supplier, explained Mr Donohoe.
Repeat prescriptions, which account for 70 per cent of all prescriptions
issued, are likely to be the first paperless transactions. Supplementary
prescribers who issue prescriptions in their community pharmacies are
likely to need systems that incorporate both prescribing and dispensing. “I
haven’t seen systems emerging that are doing that,” Mr Donohoe
commented. He pointed out that specifications for both types of system
have been issued by the Department of Health and it is for suppliers
to fill any gaps in the market.
CfH has updated its website to include a section on the electronic prescription
service, which provides information on how it is being introduced and
the changes that will take place. The guidance to be issued to pharmacy
contractors will be made available on this website |
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