Pharmacists are being advised not to sign agreements for electronic transmission of prescription (ETP) enabled systems until guidance on compliance status is issued by NHS Connecting for Health.
The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) has released a statement advising pharmacists not to commit to anything yet. It is understand that some suppliers are offering to sign up pharmacists now to agreements to deliver ETP enabled systems.
The statement says: “PSNC would strongly advise contractors not to commit themselves to a particular system supplier or sign a service level agreement with suppliers for the delivery of ETP enabled systems until more information is available on how ETP is going to be implemented.”
Lindsay McClure, head of information services at the PSNC, told EHI Primary Care that the PSNC was confident that more news on the ETP implementation plan would be available next month (June).
She added: “We believe that pharmacy contractors should wait until they have more information on the way that ETP is going to be rolled out nationally before financially committing themselves to a particular system supplier for the delivery of an ETP enabled system.
“In the meantime, we would continue to encourage pharmacy contractors to take time now to learn about the National Programme projects that will impact on their practice in the future and investigate different options that may be available to them from different system suppliers.”
All pharmacies in England will need to use an NPfIT compliant pharmacy system which is connected to N3 to undertake ETP. Pharmacists who have sufficient connectivity, a compliant systems and transmit prescriptions electronically to the Prescription Pricing Authority will receive an allowance for maintenance and connectivity. The payment level of the allowance is to be agreed once the cost of NPfIT compliant systems is known.
Two ETP pilots are currently running in Keighley,West Yorkshire and Croydon, south London and a third pilot in Brighton is due to go live soon. The majority of implementations are due to happen in 2006 and 2007.