Skip to main content

Electronic prescriptions for prescribers

Find out about using the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS), the benefits it offers to prescribers, along with advice and support on using the service.

Page contents

SCAL notice for suppliers

Please refer to the Supplier Conformance Assessment List (SCAL) as the definitive source of supplier information and guidance for EPS development. You will receive the SCAL when you begin the EPS onboarding process.

Help improve the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS)

We're looking for feedback from users of EPS to improve information available to patients and healthcare professionals. 

If you're a prescriber or dispenser, you can help this research by taking part in workshops, telephone interviews or short online surveys. 

Find out more and register your interest.

EPS allows prescribers to send prescriptions electronically to a dispenser (such as a pharmacy) of the patient's choice. This makes the prescribing and dispensing process more efficient and convenient for patients and staff. 

Benefits of EPS for prescribers

Prescriptions are processed more efficiently
  • Sign individual or multiple prescriptions electronically.
  • During face-to-face, telephone or video consultations, prescriptions can be sent to the patient's nominated pharmacy, reducing footfall in the prescriber's location as patients collect their prescription from the pharmacy instead.
  • No need to post prescriptions, saving time.
  • Less chance of prescriptions going to the wrong dispenser or getting lost.
Spend less time dealing with prescriptions
  • Standardised prescription information reduces the number of queries from dispensers.
  • Improved prescription accuracy reduces the chances of patients receiving the wrong medication. 
  • Electronic prescriptions can't be lost, reducing the risk of duplicate prescriptions being created. 
  • No need to prepare and sort prescriptions ready for collection. 
Have greater control over prescriptions
  • Prescriptions can be cancelled at any time until they have been dispensed, and replacements can be sent electronically.
  • Visibility of the current status of prescriptions via the NHS Prescription Tracker.

Case studies

Information to help prescribers make the most of the EPS.

Integrate EPS into your service

Read our guidance to learn how to integrate EPS into your service. EPS is available to use in most primary, urgent, secondary and community care settings in England.

ARTICLE

Enabling EPS for your service

The Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) is currently available within primary, secondary and community care settings in England where an EPS approved prescribing system is in use, and FP10 prescriptions are issued for dispensing by community pharmacies or appliance contractors.

EPS for primary care 

EPS allows the transmission of prescription information for digitally signed prescriptions from primary care prescribers to the NHS Spine, from where they can be downloaded by dispensers including community pharmacies, dispensing appliance contractors, and dispensing doctors.  

Read more about EPS in primary care.

EPS for secondary care

EPS is available in secondary care for outpatient prescriptions to be sent electronically to community pharmacy.

Read more about EPS in secondary care

EPS for community health and other care settings

EPS functionality is available to care settings such as extended access hubs, community, out of hours and urgent care settings. This is dependent on the care setting system supplier functionality.

Read more about EPS for community health

Using EPS as a prescriber

Here are some resources to help you get the most out of using the Electronic Prescription Service.

Nominating a dispenser

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

Generating and signing an electronic prescription 

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

Electronic repeat dispensing for prescribers 

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

Read more about electronic repeat dispensing

Cancelling an electronic prescription – for prescribers

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 

Prescribing and dispensing tokens

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  

Using EPS in remote consultations 

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

Read more about using EPS in remote consultations

EPS in integrated urgent care 

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

NHS Dictionary of Medicines and Devices and prescribing systems

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 

Using EPS for patients with both a pharmacy and appliance contractor nomination 

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.

Contact us

Enquiry Point of contact
Live service incident

National Service Desk
Email: [email protected]
EPS implementation queries (for NHS organisations)

Digital Partnering Hub
Email: [email protected]
EPS onboarding enquiries

EPS Onboarding and Assurance team
Email: [email protected]
EPS support enquiries (live services)

EPS Live Service Management Team
Email: [email protected]
Senior responsible officer (SRO)

Rahul Singal
Email: [email protected]
Any other general enquiries

Enquiries team
Email: [email protected]

Further information

internal EPS clinical prescription tracker

The Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) Prescription Tracker allows staff working at prescribing and dispensing sites to check the status of a prescription.

internal Reimbursement model guidance

Our reimbursement model guidance seeks to support API consumers with populating prescriptions with the necessary details needed for reimbursement.

external
internal Statistics

Download the latest statistics, GP planned go-lives and more. The Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) sends electronic prescriptions from GP surgeries to pharmacies Download the number of nominations set by dispensing contractor.

Last edited: 9 July 2024 3:42 pm