Enabling EPS for your service

The Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) allows prescribers to send prescriptions electronically to the dispenser of the patient's choice, for example, a community pharmacy. EPS is currently available within primary, secondary and community care settings in England and Wales, as well as other health and social care settings, such as extended access hubs, community services, out of hours and urgent care. The level of EPS functionality currently available will depend on what system the organisation uses.

Services that would like to enable EPS must ensure they fall into one of the approved care settings and have an approved prescribing system in place.

This information would need to be captured on an EPS Use Case Form and approved by NHS England.

Successful implementation of EPS into any care setting requires a number of phases. If you are considering switching on EPS for any of your clinical services, our Digital Partnering Team will offer support through the stages of implementation. Contact us at [email protected].

Make sure to also consider the additional information for GP practices, secondary care and integrated urgent care, including the benefits of using EPS and what functionality is available. See more at:

• EPS in secondary care
• EPS in integrated urgent care
• EPS in GP practices

1. Confirm with your system supplier if the EPS functionality is available to your service.
2. Before enabling your service you must establish the prescribing cost centre you will use for EPS.
3. If you are developing a new integration, you must use the Electronic Prescription Service - FHIR API.
4. Sites using TPP SystmOne should contact TPP by emailing [email protected] with the organisation ID of the SystmOne unit to request enablement.
5. Sites using EMIS Web can read the information about activating EPS set out on Optum Help Centre.
6. Sites using urgent care systems should see the EPS in integrated urgent care guidance.

Examples of primary, secondary and community care settings that can use EPS include:

EPS is not currently approved for use in the following settings, even if one of the approved prescribing systems is used:

These systems are approved for prescribing via EPS.

The latest information on approved IT suppliers for secondary care is available on FutureNHS.

Before EPS is enabled in your care setting, please make sure your team has read and understood the guidance and information about using EPS on this page and in our Digital Medicines space on FutureNHS, which can help with development of local business processes.

Your EPS system supplier will provide information specific to the system.

Some of our guidance information is on the FutureNHS collaboration platform - log in with your existing account, or register first.

Things to consider

1. When using a standalone EPS system, you must have business processes in place for using EPS alongside other patient record systems to ensure prescription details are recorded in both systems.
2. You must be using the dm+d and product-based prescribing.
3. Patient details must be matched to the Personal Demographics Service (PDS).

Most prescriptions can be sent via EPS. However, there may be problems if:

• the patient cannot be found on the PDS if demographics in the local record do not match the details held on the Spine
• the medication to be prescribed is not listed in the dm+d
• the prescriber has logged on without their smartcard, or the prescriber’s smartcard has insufficient roles

System outage

System outages are rare. However, to ensure that services run smoothly in the unlikely event that the EPS system is down, we recommend you:

• review and update business continuity plans
• ensure prescription printers are available and regularly maintained so that the service can revert to paper prescriptions if needed
• retain a supply of FP10 stationery as a backup
• sign up for EPS service alerts to keep up to date with any national system issues.

The following tools are available to support business continuity during an outage:

EPS Prescription Tracker – confirms the status of existing prescriptions.

NHS Digital IT service status webpage – provides real-time updates on the status of key national NHS IT services.

Summary care record (SCR) – provides details about patients, including medication and allergies, to support decision-making.

For further help with troubleshooting check your system supplier guidance.

Contact your Digital Partnering Regional Manager or email [email protected].