Electronic Transmission of Prescriptions (ETP)

‘Transfer of prescription data between GPs, pharmacies and the Prescription Pricing Authority will be carried out electronically, using the NHSNet, in the large majority of cases by 2008, or even earlier’

The Electronic Transmission of Prescriptions (ETP) Pilot Project is designed to test different approaches to the transmission of prescriptions between GPs, community pharmacies and the Prescription Pricing Authority (PPA). The Department of Health (DH) commissioned three ETP pilots with the PPA participating in the business and technical evaluation of the supplier tenders. The three proposed solutions are designed and financed by the commercial sector. They provide the opportunity to test in a live environment, the feasibility, benefits and costs of ETP data transfer.

The PPA initiated an internal project to integrate the ETP Pilot electronic messages into its business and technical processes. This was successfully delivered to enable the electronic messages to be included in the dispensing contractor payments and made available in the PPA Prescribing / Dispensing Information Repository.

Due to the critical nature of the ETP Pilot project and the fact that it would effect actual contractor payments, the PPA proposed and implemented a strict testing and accreditation regime on itself and the suppliers to reduce the risk of incorrect payments and information. This has been a major contributor to the low level of errors reported in the project.

The PPA has played a major part in the management, and contribution to, the electronic prescription message development team. This is one of the cornerstones of the project in that all participants in the project must have a common standard message format so the receiving partner can accurately interpret their information.

The PPA is a proactive member of the Professional Advisory, Technical Advisory and Issues Resolution groups that support the ETP Pilot development.

The first 'live' electronic messages were received in March 2002 and up to March 2003 the PPA has successfully processed over 60,000 electronic prescription messages.

The PPA has actively contributed to the ETP Pilot evaluation carried out by an independent evaluation team, the Sowerby Centre for Health Informatics at Newcastle (SCHIN). The results of the evaluation are one of the inputs being used to determine how best to roll out ETP across the NHS.

All consortia have been granted permission to continue the pilots for a further six months (up to June 2003) on the basis of their submissions against the continuation criteria. The PPA was part of the team that devised the continuation criteria and participated in the subsequent consortia response evaluation.

The PPA has taken a leading role with the consortia, system suppliers and PCT user community in the review and development of the pilot common business model and supporting message flows. This is being discussed with the Professional Advisory group, which includes the General Medical Council and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain.

The PPA is part of the DH National Programme team working to determine options for the way forward for ETP.