What is the Electronic Prescription Service?

A new way to get your medicines and appliances

The Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) is an NHS service. Your GP practice can send your prescription electronically to the place you choose to get your medicines or appliances from.

What does this mean for you?

• If you get a repeat prescription, you will not have to spend your time going to your GP practice each time to pick up your paper prescription. Instead your GP will send it automatically to the place you choose, with no chance of it getting lost.
• You will have more choice about where to get your medicines from, because they can be collected from a pharmacy near to where you live, work or shop.
• You may not have to wait as long for your prescription items, as there will be time to get your repeat prescription items ready before you arrive. If any of the medicines on your prescription are out of stock, they can be ordered in ready for you.

You can read the patient information leaflet or what patients who are already using EPS think about EPS on this site.

When will I be able to use EPS?

You can check if your GP and your preferred pharmacy are offering EPS now, or in the near future, by checking the EPS maps. Just choose your area and zoom in. If you click on the coloured icons the name of the practice or pharmacy will be shown.  You can also see if your GP and pharmacy are offering EPS on NHS Choices.

For more information about EPS please use the menu on the left.

Other information you may find useful

NHS Choices

NHS Choices is the online 'front door' to the NHS. It is the country's biggest health website and gives all the information you need to make choices about your health.

Summary Care Record (SCR)

The NHS in England is introducing Summary Care Records to improve the safety and quality of patient care.
It will give healthcare staff faster, easier access to reliable information about you to help with your treatment.
Today, all the places where you receive care keep records about you. They can usually only share information from your records by letter, e-mail, fax or phone. At times, this can be slow and sometimes things get lost on the way. SCR will be quicker ways to get important information to NHS staff treating you, including in an emergency.

Choose and Book

Choose and Book is a national electronic referral service which gives patients a choice of place, date and time for their first outpatient appointment in a hospital or clinic.

HealthSpace

HealthSpace is a free, secure online personal health organiser. It can help you to manage your health, store important health information or find out about NHS services near you.
Anyone living in England aged 16 or over with an email address can register for a HealthSpace account.

Electronic patient record transfer (GP2GP)

GP2GP enables patients' electronic health records to be transferred directly and securely between GP practices.
It improves patient care as GPs will usually have full and detailed medical records available to them for a new patient's first consultation.

For more information about EPS please use the menu on the left.