Pharmacies across Wales are gearing up for a new era of efficiency and safety following the first national approval of a system for providing electronic prescriptions.
Following successful testing, the new Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) is approved for roll-out at more than 700 pharmacies across Wales.
The service will give patients the ability to collect prescriptions from their choice of community pharmacy, without the need for a paper form. They will also be able to collect repeat prescriptions direct from the pharmacy without having to visit their GP surgery.
Pharmacists, meanwhile, will benefit from a simplified reimbursement process as well as more efficient prescribing, improved stock control, less paper use and reduced risk of errors.
The development is the result of a collaboration between the Board of Digital Health and Care Wales (DHCW) and a pioneering patient medication record (PMR) system called Titan, the first and only service of its kind to be approved for EPS use in Wales.
Geoff Thomas of Malpas Pharmacy in Newport, which is one of the first pharmacies in South Wales to go live with the new system, said:
“It’s the start of a new era for us. We will shortly be offering patients the opportunity to nominate either Malpas or Malpas Brook as their chosen pharmacy to receive electronic transfer of their prescriptions. Once the GPs surgeries have deployed the system too, we’ll all be ready to realise the benefits.
“It’s great to see EPS technology signed off for use in Wales – it’s going to make life much easier for patients, it will improve efficiency at GP surgeries and will allow us to continue to develop our businesses and enhance the services we offer.”
The company behind Titan PMR, which is already used by a large number of community pharmacies across Wales, is Bristol tech entrepreneur Invatech Health.
CEO Tariq Muhammad, a former community pharmacist, said the certification of Titan for EPS use was a landmark moment for the sector in Wales.
“We’re delighted to be the first PMR system approved for EPS use in Wales,” he said. “It’s going to bring great benefits to existing Titan customers and their patients and we’re looking forward to enabling other pharmacies to take on the benefits, too.
“The roll-out of EPS capability across the GP surgery network over coming months will give great competitive opportunities to community pharmacies across the country, so we’d encourage pharmacists to prepare early and not be left behind.
“We know there is commitment from NHS Wales and the national Government to get this moving and bring the benefits of EPS to patients and health services across the country. We’re going to start our work with our customers straightaway so the benefits can be realised as soon as the surgeries come on board.”
Titan was signed off by DHCW in the middle of March and officially certified in early April. The certification follows three months of successful testing at Lakeside Medical Centre and Wellington Road Pharmacy in Rhyl.
The EPS certification in Wales is the latest in a series of pioneering developments by Titan PMR, which in late 2019 became the first PMR system in 15 years to be accredited by the NHS England.
Since then, backed by significant funding from Innovate UK, the software has been adopted by hundreds of community and online pharmacies around the country which are jointly dispensing almost 10 per cent of all prescriptions in the UK.
Titan has been disrupting the pharmacy market with its innovative solutions aimed at freeing up pharmacist time and making the dispensing process more efficient and safe. Titan demonstrated the first paperless pharmacy in 2021 and was the first to use Artificial Intelligence for clinical checking in 2022.
In April last year Titan became the first viable software to be given full release authority by the NHS to provide EPS to dispensing doctors who provide services to almost 10 million people in the UK’s rural communities.
