Primary Care Drug Dictionary for NHS in England

"The introduction of a common NHS drug reference will form the cornerstone of electronic prescribing and dispensing of medicines"

The Department of Health has initiated a project for the creation of a Primary Care Drug Dictionary (PCDD), that can be used as a cornerstone for the Electronic Transmission of Prescriptions (ETP), the automation of business processes within the PPA and ultimately for use in Primary Care across the NHS in England.

Working with a team of GP, Pharmacy and National Health Service Information Authority (NHSIA) stakeholders co-ordinated by the Sowerby Centre for Health Informatics at Newcastle (SCHIN), the PPA is developing and populating a drug dictionary for release at the end of December 2002. This will enable GP and pharmacy system suppliers to integrate it into their systems to support the rollout of the electronic transmission of prescriptions.

The PCDD will link with the UK Standard Clinical Products Reference Source (UKCPRS) project. This has been established by the NHSIA in response to the strategy document Information for Health which identified a requirement for a standard clinical products reference source on a national basis, interoperable between the primary, secondary and tertiary health sectors.

The dictionary will provide categorical information related to products, not opinion or 'added value' information. The range of products that the dictionary will reference include:

• all drugs which are prescribable and reimbursable within primary care;
  
• NHS black listed products;
  
• appliances and reagents that are listed in the Drug Tariff issued by the NHS for England and Wales.

The above includes most of the medicinal products in the PPA Product List and they constitute over 99.9% of prescribed and dispensed medicinal products within primary care. The aim is not to be so exhaustive as to
include every possible product and it will be left to the DH lead editorial policy to decide on the inclusion of rarely issued items. The editorial board is responsible for definitions of content such as names, forms, routes and syntax.

The Systemized Nomenclature of Medicine (SNOMED) coding system will be used to identify products in the PCDD in order to link seamlessly with the secondary care.