The NHS Electronic Prescription Service is part of the NHS National Programme for IT of the National Health Service in England . It enables the electronic transfer of medical prescriptions from doctors (or other prescribers) to pharmacies and other dispensers and electronic notification to the reimbursement agency, NHS Prescription Services .
20-822: The project is to be delivered in two releases: In August 2018 NHS Digital announced that all the 1,311 eligible GP practices in London could use the service. From November 2019 digital-only prescriptions were introduced across England. Patients may choose to have a paper prescription if they do not want to specify a pharmacy. In July 2021 it was announced that hospital trusts in England could begin testing electronic prescribing in Autumn 2021. This would enable hospital outpatient prescriptions to be sent electronically to patients’ nominated community pharmacy, and prescriptions to be sent to home care providers. NHS Scotland implements
40-609: A "pathfinder" programme involving 265 GP surgeries with 1.7 million patients across West Hampshire , Blackburn and Darwen , Leeds and Somerset . A review by the Cabinet Office Major Projects Authority said to have been conducted in October 2014 concluded that the program had “major issues with project definition, schedule, budget, quality and/or benefits delivery, which at this stage do not appear to be manageable or resolvable”. Atos
60-610: A similar scheme, under the name Acute Medication Service (AMS). In 2022 prescribing in Wales was still largely paper based. The Welsh Government confirmed plans in September 2021 to develop ePrescribing in Wales. Swansea Bay University Health Board had almost eradicated paper drug charts in 15 medical wards, using Hospital ePrescribing and Medicines Administration. This reduced the time nurses spent on medication rounds and reduced potential errors in prescriptions. In November 2022, it
80-545: Is intended to enable paramedics, community mental health nurses, children’s health teams and maternity services to access the records of mental health patients across England. In August 2020 it launched a pilot electronic prescription service in three hospital trusts, where hospital prescriptions were sent electronically to the patient’s community pharmacy, as during the COVID-19 pandemic in England most outpatient consultations were held remotely. A troubleshooting operation
100-595: Is the national website for the NHS in England. NHS Digital has taken on the roles of a number of predecessor bodies including the NHS Information Centre , NHS Connecting for Health , and parts of NHS Direct . The organisation produces more than 260 official and national statistical publications. This includes national comparative data for secondary uses, developed from the long-running Hospital Episode Statistics which can help local decision makers to improve
120-705: Is the public website for the NHS Services in England, and is run by a team at NHS Digital, mandated by DOH with input from Public Health England . In November 2022 it had been visited more than one billion times in the previous 12 months. Simon Bolton, formerly chief information officer at Jaguar Land Rover and NHS Test and Trace , was appointed as interim chief executive officer in June 2021. He replaced Sarah Wilkinson , CEO from August 2017 until she decided to step down in March 2021. Care.data care.data
140-508: Is used for a range of statistical analysis, as well as for determining payments to providers. In addition to admitted patient care, HES also provides data for outpatient and emergency care encounters. The Emergency Care Data Set has been created to replace HES A&E data and provide better data on emergency care encounters. In November 2019 it launched the National Record Locator, which spans different health economies and
160-569: The National Health Service of England . The organisation was an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health and Social Care . NHS Digital provides digital services for the NHS and social care, including the management of large health informatics programmes. They deliver national systems through in-house teams, and by contracting private suppliers. These services include managing patient data including
180-618: The NHS such as academic institutions or commercial organisations. The use of identifiable data is governed by the common law on confidentiality, UK data protection legislation, the National Health Service Act 2006 and the Health and Social Care Act 2012 . Identifiable data can only be released in compliance with those laws. Software and services were being provided by Atos which has itself received criticism for some of its other UK government projects. Since its launch,
200-629: The Spine, which allows the secure sharing of information between different parts of the NHS, and forms the basis of the Electronic Prescription Service, Summary Care Record and Electronic Referral Service. NHS Digital is also the national collator of information about health and social care, and publishes over 260 statistical publications each year, including Official Statistics and National Statistics. It also runs " The NHS Website " ( www.nhs.uk , formerly NHS Choices), which
220-541: The care.data program was controversial. Initially criticism focused around the lack of patient awareness of the programme, and the lack of clarity around options for opting out of the data extraction. The leaflet sent to households in England was criticised for only describing the benefits of the scheme, and not including an opt-out form. The programme was stopped in May 2014 and in October 2014 six clinical commissioning groups in four areas of England were selected to take part in
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#1732793206658240-434: The national 'Hospital Episode Statistics' (HES), which is a record of every 'episode' of admitted patient care (counted by completing care with a consultant, meaning that more than one episode can be associated with a single stay in hospital ) delivered by the NHS in England, including those done under contract by private providers. This involves the tracking of around 16 million 'episodes' of care every year. This information
260-761: The quality and efficiency of frontline care. The organisation was created as a special health authority on 1 April 2005 by a merger of the National Programme for IT, part of the Department of Health , the NHS Information Authority , and the Prescribing Support Unit. Following the Health and Social Care Act 2012 , the HSCIC changed from a special health authority to an executive non-departmental public body on 1 April 2013. Effective at this time, HSCIC took over parts of
280-698: The troubled NHS National Programme for IT from the agency NHS Connecting for Health (CfH) which ceased to exist. It also runs the Health Survey for England . On 20 April 2016, it was announced that HSCIC would be rebranding, changing its name to NHS Digital in July 2016. NHSX , created in February 2019, has oversight of digital strategy and policy in NHS England. As a budget-holder, NHSX commissions projects from NHS Digital. On 22 November 2021 it
300-725: Was a programme announced by the then Health and Social Care Information Centre in spring 2013. It aimed to extract data from GP surgeries into a central database through the General Practice Extraction Service (GPES). Members of the English population who were registered with GP practices were informed that data on their health would be uploaded to HSCIC unless they exercised their rights to object by informing their GP. Data on patients who did not object would then be used in anonymised form by health care researchers, managers and planners including those outside
320-429: Was announced that NHS Digital would be merged with NHSX and incorporated into NHS England. The merger was completed on 1 February 2023. NHS Digital ran the Spine service for the NHS, which is a central, secure system for patient data in England. This enables a number of services for patients, including: As the HSCIC, the organisation ran the care.data programme, which was cancelled in 2016. NHS Digital collected
340-571: Was announced that the NHS Electronic Prescription Service would allow its first Pharmacy app integration (with Healthera ). NHS Digital NHS Digital was the trading name of the Health and Social Care Information Centre , which was the national provider of information, data and IT systems for commissioners, analysts and clinicians in health and social care in England , particularly those involved with
360-442: Was announced that the programme had again been paused due to confidentiality concerns remaining unresolved. The programme was abandoned in July 2016. In May 2021 NHS Digital announced a new programme to replace the General Practice Extraction Service , General Practice Data for Planning and Research which was compared to Care.data. After widespread protests the launch was put back from 1 July to 1 September 2021. NHS Digital
380-719: Was criticised by the Public Accounts Committee in December 2015 and accused of taking advantage of the Department of Health and not showing "an appropriate duty of care to the taxpayer”. The company is one of 8 suppliers working on the project and is to be paid £11.4 million, an increase on the original £8 million. In June 2015, it was announced that the programme of data extraction would start again in Blackburn in September. In September 2015, it
400-526: Was established in 2018 to help NHS trusts when major IT deployments go wrong. Eight trusts needed emergency assistance in 2018 after a deployment led to severe service disruptions. Funding of £2 million a year for the service has been allocated and expansion is expected. NHS Digital compiles national data about the NHS and social care, with over 260 publications every year. In addition, they provide data analysis, and access to data and clinical indicators. The NHS website www.nhs.uk , formerly NHS Choices,
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