EPS onboarding guidance for suppliers

Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) 'onboarding' is the term used for the development and NHS England assurance required before IT suppliers can offer EPS to NHS organisations. EPS onboarding includes the following elements.

Development against EPS prerequisites

EPS relies on a number of other systems, services and capabilities. Suppliers must offer, or have integration with, these services to conclude onboarding. Visit the EPS FHIR API catalogue for the full list of the services.

Development against the EPS FHIR API

EPS integration must be carried out against the newly developed prescribing and dispensing EPS fast healthcare interoperability resources (FHIR) application process interfaces (API). The API is a set of definitions and protocols that allow products and services to communicate. The development will be undertaken in line with requirements set out in the FHIR API supplier conformance assessment (SCAL) - a technical document covering requirements including information governance, clinical safety and functional testing.

Documentation

IT suppliers need to create and maintain:

• an up-to-date record of progress against the SCAL
• a connecting system risk log
• a hazard log
• a clinical safety case

To enter the EPS onboarding process you must first submit an EPS Use Case form.

EPS currently can not support and will not accept use cases for:

• independent prescribing in community pharmacy (pathfinder programme underway)
• homecare (pilot underway)
• dentistry 
• optometry
• use of private prescriptions
• use of instalment dispensing (FP10MDA)

To complete the Use Case Form details about how and where an EPS product will be used need to be submitted. This information will then be used to consider the application and ensure that it is placed within the appropriate EPS onboarding queue.

Following a successful use case request, NHS England requires all parties to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU). The MoU outlines ways of working and activities that both NHS England and prospective suppliers agree to undertake during each tier of the EPS onboarding process.

The EPS onboarding process is broken down into three tiers and depending on demand suppliers may be placed into a queue before entering the process.

EPS onboarding queue

Access to the EPS SCAL can be provided at this point to enable familiarisation but no support will be available from the NHS England EPS team. Therefore, development work at this stage is carried out at your own risk.

Progression through the queue will be in the order of when you submitted the EPS use case form. When capacity becomes available the IT supplier at the top of the relevant queue will be offered the opportunity to move into Tier 3.

The Electronic Prescription Service - FHIR API is used to access EPS. To integrate prescribing and dispensing systems with EPS suppliers will need to meet these EPS requirements.

The Directory of Healthcare Services (Service Search) API is also required. This provides information about dispensing services from NHS Choices, NHS Pathways and the NHS Organisation Data Service (ODS) available to prescribing systems.

HL7v3 API system suppliers

The HL7v3 API interface is now deprecated. Suppliers who were onboarded onto this need to move onto the Electronic Prescription Service - FHIR API.

Contact [email protected] to be added to the queue.

Dispensing suppliers are now required to provide prescription status updates to support the national prescription tracking service for patients. This enables patients to self-manage and track their prescriptions on the NHS App. Visit Prescription Status Update - FHIR API for information and guidance.

Clinicians can track prescriptions using the Electronic Prescription Service Tracker - REST API and the EPS clinical prescription tracker.

If you would like more information, please contact [email protected] for onboarding and assurance enquiries or [email protected] for live service management.