Community pharmacists in England are to get access to NHSmail for the first time from the beginning of 2008.
Until now the 10,000 community pharmacists in England have not been able to use NHSmail to securely exchange data with NHS colleagues by email, though it has been available to their counterparts in NHS Scotland.
C&W, the firm responsible for delivering NHSmail, has told EHI Primary Care that together with NHS Connecting for Health it has begun working with a Primary Care Trust (PCT) in the Midlands to test the service with a group of community pharmacists.
Ian Fowler, director of public sector with C&W, told EHI Primary Care: "The most significant part of this is that it opens up NHSmail to a wider community of staff. It will enable them to securely exchange information with NHS colleagues."
NHS Connecting for Health is currently confirming details with the un-named pilot PCT. The pilot will test the provisioning process, technical deployment and administration functions of granting access to community pharmacists.
C&W say that based on the results of this pilot it anticipates that the NHSmail service will be made generally available to community pharmacists in the first quarter of 2008.
A key decision to be taken in October will be to decide whether to start offering the service on the current Mirrapoint email platform, and migrate community pharmacists to Microsoft Exchange along with other NHSmail users.
"We’re looking to move to Exchange at the end of Q1 2008. We’re in the development phase now moving to testing," said Fowler.
C&W says that by using NHSmail, processes such as the medication usage review, where community pharmacists are required to exchange patient information with health professionals, will be faster and more secure than before.