Electronic Prescribing & Financial Information for Practices (ePFIP)

A service that enables GPs, practice managers and practice based nurse prescribers to compare and manage their prescribing performance to improve the delivery of health care to their patients.

The service consists of four electronic reports, including replacements for the PACT reports, and is produced around 6 weeks after the dispensing period. Users can:

• View reports online
• Download available reports to PCs
• Print the available reports
• Select data.

The service is also available to PCT users who can view the Prescribing Analysis Reports and Prescribing Reviews for the practices within their PCT.

Prescribing Analysis Report

The Prescribing Analysis Report enables practice prescribers to manage, monitor and control their prescribing habits and costs. The information is available on a monthly and quarterly basis for the previous 13 months and shows:

• The total level of prescribing
• Breakdown of prescribing in the 6 highest cost BNF Therapeutic Groups
• Top 20 leading cost drugs in the practice
• Top 40 BNF Sections by cost in the practice.
• Comparisons with PCT and National levels over the previous 13 month period.
• Trends of prescribing within a practice in terms of both cost and volume.

Practice Detailed Prescribing Information (PDPI)

Practice Detailed Prescribing Information provides a full inventory of the prescription items issued in the previous 24 months. It provides a breakdown for practices by GP, practice nurse, and other practice prescribers and optional comparisons with the PCT and the practice's same period in the previous year.

The information can be selected by:

• Any combination of months from the previous 24 months
• All prescribers, specific prescriber or practice totals
• British National Formulary (BNF) chapter
• Level of detail from BNF chapter to quantity prescribed for each presentation.
• Prescribing or Dispensing Catalogues.
• Summary Catalogues showing comparisons with PCT levels
• Trainee/GP Registrar prescribing
• Locum/Deputising Services prescribing

The information can be sorted by BNF or prescriber.

Prescribing Monitoring Document (PMD)

The Prescribing Monitoring Document provides financial information about prescribing costs against budgets. It shows the cost of prescribing, to enable prescribers to manage the drugs element of their unified budgets.

The information is updated on a monthly basis and shows

• The indicative prescribing budget for the current financial year (not shown in April or May)
• Total monthly expenditure
• Cumulative expenditure (April to current month)
• Forecast out-turn (based on information provided by the Department of Health. It is based on a spending pattern, which has been calculated using previous years spending data)
• Dispensing days in month and year to date.

The annual statement produced for March shows the actual expenditure for the financial year.

Prescribing Review

The Prescribing Review is an expert article discussing national guidance, recent clinical trials and prescribing trends for a specific area of treatment.

This is provided electronically each quarter through the ePFIP service and shows:

• Practice Prescribing performance for the specific drug groupings that are the subject of each quarter's article.



• Practice prescribing costs and items are also shown in comparison with the local PCT equivalent values.

How to get involved

The service is available from the PPD web site, www.ppa.nhs.uk which includes a 'Quick Start Guide'.

To access the service, users require a PC with Internet Explorer and connection to the NHS.net.

If you wish to have access to this service, please contact the PPD helpdesk with your details by email at help@ppa.nhs.uk or by telephone on 0191 2035050.