Prescribing system supplier status - EPS Release 2 (PDF, 30.5kB)

Dispensing system supplier status – EPS Release 2

Status of N3 Internet service providers

EPS Release 2 is being carefully introduced in order to ensure that safe and steady progress is made while increasing patient safety and efficiency. There are a number of criteria that need to be met before Release 2 can be used to benefit patients:

• the PCT must have Secretary of State Directions
• the prescriber and the dispenser must be enabled to use the service with a suitable, approved system
• patients need to nominate an enabled dispensing contractor.

EPS statistics (updated 21 May 2012)

A total of 151 general practices and 4,670 pharmacy sites are now ready to start using EPS Release 2.  These are marked on the deployment map.
To date, 705,870 prescriptions containing 1,561,801 items have been dispensed and claimed.
A total of 371,741 patient nominations have been set.

There are 83 PCTs with Secretary of State Directions.

Note:

It is understood that many pharmacies are downloading EPS Release 1 scripts from the Spine by scanning in the barcode which brings the Release 1 benefits that include checking the patients demographics and capturing their NHS number. Unfortunately we can only report the number of scripts where a dispense notification has subsequently been sent to the Spine. Many pharmacies choose not to send dispense notifications as this step offers little additional benefit in EPS Release 1 as the paper prescription is still used for endorsements and reimbursement.

In EPS Release 2 the number of prescriptions sent electronically matches the number of dispense notifications sent as the whole process is electronic.