A further 24 primary care trusts are to be authorised to take part in Release 2 of the Electronic Prescription Service from February next year.
The Department of Health said they would be added to the EPS Authorisation Directions from 1 February 2011, bringing the total number of PCTs authorised to take part in EPS R2 to 51.
The roll-out of EPS R2 began last summer, when a pharmacy and a GP practice in Leeds using TPP’s SystmOne and Cegedim’s Pharmacy Manager became the first sites to use the system.
However, progress since then has been slow as PCTs have been waiting for more pharmacy and GP systems to receive NHS Connecting for Health accreditation.
A DH spokesperson told EHI Primary Care this week that 19 pharmacies across England were currently using EPS R2.
EPS R2, which was originally due to go live in October 2007, is designed to deliver much of the business benefit of the electronic transmission of prescriptions.
It includes nomination of pharmacies, electronic prescription signing, and the ability for GPs to electronically cancel prescriptions.
A DH spokesperson said Release 1, which was designed to set up the technical infrastructure for EPS, had enabled almost 25m prescription messages to be dispensed via the system by the beginning of last week.
The 24 PCTs that are to be added to the directions are: Brighton and Hove City Teaching; Doncaster; East Lancashire Teaching; East Riding of Yorkshire; East Sussex Downs and Weald; Greenwich Teaching; Hastings and Rother; Hertfordshire; Newcastle; Bradford and Airedale; Eastern and Coastal Kent; Hammersmith and Fulham; Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale; Kensington and Chelsea; Lambeth; Lincolnshire; Westminster; Northamptonshire Teaching; Northumberland Care Trust, North Tyneside; Rotherham; Wakefield District; Warrington; and Worcestershire.
In Wales, all GP practices have been generating 2D-barcoded prescriptions for more than 12 months.
A spokesperson for the NHS Wales Informatics Service said the second stage is for pharmacies to be able to scan the bar-coded prescription with a barcode scanner once it is received from the patient.
She added: “This new system of data entry is currently being tested at 20 ‘first of type’ pharmacy sites across Wales, using three pharmacy systems.
"Evaluations of these systems will take place at the end of this year followed by plans for their phased and controlled roll out."