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Electronic Prescription Service in secondary care

Learn about the benefits of implementing the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) in secondary care plus guidance for NHS trusts preparing to implement EPS.

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The Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) allows prescribers to send prescriptions electronically to a community pharmacy of the patient's choice. This is facilitated by using Spine, the national messaging system in England which allows clinical messaging, such as EPS, to communicate between approved systems.

It should not be confused with the Electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration (ePMA) system which is currently only used for inpatient services.

Click the play button to watch a short EPS video which lasts 1 minute.

Making the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) more widely available

Digital Partnering offer for secondary care

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].

In addition to meetings and tailored support, we can offer business case and process map templates, business change checklist, EPS go-live checklist and other helpful materials.

Find out more about Digital Partnering offer for implementing EPS in secondary care.

Benefits of EPS in secondary care

  1. Improved prescription issuing and management of workflows.
  2. Removal of paper prescription pads leading to:
    • clinician time saved through reduced administrative burden
    • reduction in errors caused by illegible prescriptions
    • improved prescribing governance
    • enhanced prescription security and tracking as prescriptions can no longer be lost or stolen
    • reduced prescription posting and courier costs
  3. Supports remote consultations.
  4. Improved patient experience via:
    • increased patient choice of dispenser
    • potential to reduce patient travel times
    • improved access to local medication
    • reduced waiting times in hospital
  5. Improved reporting of prescribing data.
  6. Ability to track all EPS prescriptions.

What EPS can do in secondary care

The EPS features available for secondary care can be found below.

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

Electronic signatures

EPS prescriptions are digitally signed by the prescriber using their smartcard PIN and sent to the patient’s chosen dispenser.

The EPS prescription message will include the contact details for the prescribing site/service in case the pharmacy has any queries for the prescriber. These contact details should be configured within the EPS system. Check your system supplier guidance.

Medical and non-medical prescribers

Doctors can prescribe any medicine available on the NHS, via EPS, in hospitals. Non-medical prescribers such as nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare professionals can also prescribe a limited range of medicines within their area of expertise using their NHS smartcard in EPS.

Instalment prescribing

EPS cannot be used for prescribing in instalments (FP10MDA prescribing).

Cancellation

Cancellation allows prescribers using EPS in hospitals to cancel a prescription. Individual items cannot be cancelled, if an item needs to be cancelled, the whole prescription will need to be cancelled.

Nominated prescriptions and one-off nominated prescriptions

Prescribers using EPS in secondary care must ask the patient to nominate a pharmacy to dispense their medication each time they issue a new prescription.

This 'one-off nomination' does not affect the patient's regular nominated pharmacy in primary care.

Read more about nominating a dispenser.

Non-nominated prescriptions

If the patient has a nomination but does not want to use their regular nominated dispenser or a ‘one-off’ nomination, a non-nominated prescription can be generated allowing the patient to present to any pharmacy of their choice.

In this circumstance, the patient should be given the prescription ID so they can provide it to a pharmacy of their choice.

EPS prescription tracker

All users with appropriate smartcard access can use the EPS Prescription Tracker to locate and view the status of active prescriptions for a patient. This includes when a prescription is still on the Spine awaiting download, with the dispenser, dispensed and claimed.

Unsupported EPS functionality in secondary care

Within secondary care, EPS does not support:

  • the prescribing of items not mapped to the dictionary of medicines and devices (dm+d)
  • prescriptions to be sent to dispensers outside of England and Wales (cross-border dispensing)
  • prescriptions to be sent to hospital pharmacies
  • instalment prescribing/dispensing (FP10MDA prescriptions)
  • the cancellation of individual items on a multi-item prescription (applies to both primary and secondary care)
  • homecare prescriptions - a homecare pilot is scheduled for 2025

Prescribing via EPS does not update the patient’s GP record. It remains the responsibility of the secondary care organisation to inform the GP via usual methods of any medication prescribed.

Secondary care users can send prescriptions to the patient’s regular nominated dispenser (primary nomination). However, they will not be able to change or add a primary nomination. If the prescription needs to be sent to an alternative dispenser, one-off nomination or non-nomination functionality should be used.

Secondary care EPS features are subject to individual system supplier development.

Contact your supplier(s) for more information.

Preparing for EPS

To prepare your trust for EPS, follow the guidance on enabling EPS for your service.

Contact us

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

Last edited: 3 June 2025 4:57 pm