Electronic prescriptions for prescribers

Patients that use EPS can choose where their prescriptions are sent to, this is called nomination. A patient’s nominated dispenser is set on the patient’s demographic service (PDS). 

Patients must be fully informed about EPS before their nomination can be set on the system.

Changes to a patient's nominated pharmacy can be made at any time, but only at the patient's request.

Nomination is suitable for most patients. Patients on regular repeats and who use the same pharmacy most of the time will see the most benefit. 

Read more about nominating a dispenser

Prescribers can apply electronic signatures to prescriptions. The signature is unique to individual prescribers and applied using the user's smartcard credentials.

Read more about generating and signing an electronic prescription

Find out about electronic repeat dispensing and how you could benefit from using it. 

Read more about electronic repeat dispensing

You can cancel the whole electronic prescription or individual item(s) on the prescription at any point until it's dispensed to the patient. A reason for cancellation is requested and then a cancellation message is sent to the Electronic Prescription Service.   

It's the responsibility of the person cancelling to ensure the patient is informed. Dispensers are notified of cancellations when they attempt to retrieve the electronic prescription.

To cancel a prescription that has already been sent to the nominated dispenser, the prescriber will need to contact the dispenser and the patient.

Read more about cancelling an electronic prescription 

Paper copies of electronic prescriptions will always need to be made available under certain circumstances. For example, when:

• GPs (prescribers) issue a non-nominated prescription
• pharmacists (dispensers) need to capture a patient signature for exemption declaration purposes

Paper copies of electronic prescriptions are called 'tokens'. They act as a hard copy of the details contained within the electronic prescription. There are two types of token; prescription and dispensing.

Read more about prescribing and dispensing tokens  

Guidance for EPS prescribing organisations when using remote consultations, via the phone video link or online. 

Read more about using EPS in remote consultations

The Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) allows prescribers in integrated urgent care settings to send electronic prescription to community pharmacies, removing the need for paper prescriptions. 

Read more about EPS in integrated urgent care

The NHS Dictionary of Medicines and Devices (dm+d) provides a standardised reference for medicines and medical devices for use by different clinical systems.  

Read more about the NHS Dictionary of Medicines and Devices and prescribing systems 

Patients who use a Dispensing Appliance Contractor (DAC) for some of their items can set a DAC nomination, as well as their pharmacy nomination. 

The contracts for pharmacies and DACs set out which prescription items they are permitted to dispense; nominated prescriptions should only be sent to them for appropriate items.

Community pharmacies and distance selling pharmacies (DSPs)

These are required to dispense any item, including appliances (if the pharmacy supplies the products in the normal course of their business). 

Dispensing Appliance Contractors (DACs)

These are only permitted to dispense certain items, listed in relevant parts of the Drug Tariff, such as: 

• Appliances – as listed in Part IXA 
• Incontinence appliances – as listed in Part IXB 
• Stoma appliances – as listed in Part IXC 

A DAC cannot dispense any medicines, ACBS foods and toilet preparations (as listed in Part XV), or chemical reagents (as listed in Part IXR). These items should not be sent to a DAC nomination.

When sending a nominated EPS prescription, most items would normally be sent to the patient’s nominated pharmacy. Prescribers should check with the patient to ensure that items are sent to the correct nominated dispenser and make sure that only specific items, as set out above, are sent to DAC.