Electronic Prescription Service in GP practices

Switching on EPS will enable patients to have their prescription sent electronically to their nominated community pharmacy via EPS. Learn more about EPS for prescribers.  

Depending on the prescribing system you use, prescriptions for patients without a nomination may also be sent via EPS in the form of a non-nominated prescription. Learn more about nominations and non-nominated prescriptions.

There are only a few scenarios where a prescription won’t be sent electronically and a paper hand-signed prescription will need to be produced, such as:

• private prescriptions
• instalment dispensed CD (FP10MDA) prescriptions
• if the patient's details are not synchronised with the PDS, or if the patient is marked as sensitive within the PDS
• if the patient is a dispensing patient and there is no EPS system available in the dispensary
• if the patient has their prescriptions dispensed in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland
• if, in the professional judgement of the prescriber, the welfare of the patient is likely to be in jeopardy unless a paper prescription is issued

Check your system supplier guidance for how to revert a prescription to FP10 if required. 

Exception codes and further guidance

The following exception codes will prevent EPS being used for a patient, meaning all prescriptions for that patient will need to be hand-signed. 

Cross-border:

If a patient regularly uses a pharmacy outside of England, the following code can be added to ensure all their prescriptions will be issued as FP10:

SNOMED 1034851000000105 - Electronic Prescription Service exception - cross-border patient 

Dispensing patient:

If you are a dispensing practice and your dispensary does not yet use EPS, your GP system supplier will advise how prescriptions for dispensing patients are issued in non-nominated prescriptions. You may not need to use this code as your system may manage this differently:

SNOMED 1034941000000103 - Electronic Prescription Service exception - dispensing general practice not yet EPS compliant.

Exception retraction:

All practices should check for these codes when receiving GP2GP records for newly registered patients. If an exception is no longer applicable, add the retraction code to enable EPS. See your system supplier’s guidance for how to manage these codes:

SNOMED 1060681000000104 - Electronic Prescription Service exception retraction.

When you go live with EPS your dispensing patients’ prescriptions will continue to default to FP10s within your dispensing workflow. Your system supplier will be able to advise further detail on functionality. A prescription can still be issued via EPS for a dispensing patient if they request.

1. Engage with your commissioner and system supplier to arrange a date for the practice to go live.
2. Business change sessions and training for teams can be carried out locally.
3. Ensure that local community pharmacies have been informed of the date of your practice go live. It’s recommended that a four-week notice period is given, but this is a local decision.
4. Your system supplier may be able to offer support on the go-live day and/or signpost you to their EPS training materials.
5. On go-live day, follow your system supplier’s guidance and make sure your team know how to raise any queries via your commissioner/local support, or with your system supplier.

See further guidance on how to prepare on the enabling EPS for your service page.

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