After what feels like an eternity of waiting, the two largest GP software system providers now have national roll-out authority for their software, so the rate of deployment of EPS R2 by GPs is bound to increase over the coming months. Most pharmacy software suppliers, but not all, have of course been ready for R2 some time.
It would be wise therefore for community pharmacists to check with their local main surgeries what their intentions and time-scales are for commencing electronic prescribing. Alternatively, or additionally, an idea of expected regional deployment can be obtained as an on-line deployment map from the Connecting for Health web site.
Early adoption of EPS R2 by pharmacists will allow them to:
* position themselves to be ready early
* access the one-off R2 allowance
* enable the pharmacy to begin to set patient nominations on the Personal Demographics Service (PDS) where patients have consented
It is possible for pharmacies not R2 enabled to start collecting patient consents, however if there then proves to be more than a 4-6 week delay between collecting consent and changing the patients preference on the PDS service, the pharmacy contractor will have the additional responsibility of confirming that there has been no subsequent change of patients circumstances including their choice of nominated dispensing site, when the PDS is updated.
As this major development for GPs, patients and pharmacists now looks certain to proceed to implementation, I would advise pharmacists, particularly those already located in competitive situations, to now move this subject towards the very top of their priorities, as staff training, smart-cards, security passwords all need to be resolved before R2 can be used. Even in apparently low competition areas, it seems reasonable to forecast that there will be a national increase in Internet pharmacy competition, possibly a significant increase, based upon the launch of R2.