E-Dispensing

The Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) is currently being introduced throughout England and will enable electronic prescriptions to be generated by your doctor, then transmitted, received and dispensed by your pharmacy. EPS enables the NHS to move away from a traditional paper-based system to a modern electronic one. The use of the electronic system will improve accuracy and aid more security as prescription information will not need to be entered by both your GP and your pharmacist, as it will be downloaded directly to the dispensing computer. The EPS will provide healthcare professionals with information on what has actually been dispensed to the patients (subject to consent). 'Smartcards' issued to individual GPs and pharmacists will provide access to the EPS (level of access may differ with each healthcare professional). Upon recieving your prescription from your doctor, you may notice that is has a barcode printed on the side. This contains no personal information but contains a unique code to identify the prescription.

When you present this at your pharmacy, the barcode is scanned and an electronic copy of the prescription appears on the computer. There is no need to re-type the information. Your prescription will then be dispensed, subject to the same level of safety checks by the pharmacist as you would expect with a standard prescription. At Kingsland Pharmacy we are able to dispense bar-coded prescriptions and are currently awaiting the implementation of stage two of the EPS service. This allows your GP to ‘sign’ your electronic prescription without the need for you to personally collect the paper prescription from your surgery. You will be able to nominate your usual pharmacy (providing they have implemented the service) who will download the prescription directly and prepare the prescription in advance of you coming to collect it. If you currently use us to have your medicines dispensed ask the pharmacist for more information about the EPS.