Patient consent

The new National Patient Prescription Tracking Service is being delivered as part of EPS. NHS England collects patient prescriptions status update (PSU) data from pharmacy IT system suppliers under two legal bases: ‘legal obligation’ (Article 6(1)(c) of UK GDPR) for England data and ‘public task’ (Article 6(1)(e) of UK GDPR) for Wales data. This approach ensures compliance with legal requirements without requiring patient consent.

The PSU data will also be made available to prescribers and dispensers in the new EPS Clinical Prescription Tracker  enabling them to check the status and location of their patients’ prescriptions.

To ensure transparency, patients must be informed about how their data is used and shared. For pharmacy IT system suppliers connecting to NPPTS there is a requirement (Conformance Requirements - 5. Privacy Notice) for them signpost to the NHS England Electronic Prescription Service Transparency Notice in their privacy policies ensuring patients understand that their data is being shared with NHS England.

Pharmacy sites with the feature enabled will not be required to notify patients about the use of their data but can signpost to NHS England Electronic Prescription Service Transparency Notice if asked.

We are aware there are other applications that provide a prescription tracking service. The new NHS England service aims to provide a consistent national experience and encourage more people to access information about their prescriptions digitally.

The NHS App is a trusted source of health information. By making prescription information more readily available, we aim to keep patients better informed whilst reducing the time front line staff spend on answering queries about the status of prescriptions. Now the service is established in the NHS App, it will be made available to third parties to onboard towards the end of 2025.