National Patient Prescription Tracking Service (NPPTS)

NPPTS is a new feature of the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) being rolled out by NHS England. This service lets patients access their prescription information online and monitor the status and availability of their prescribed EPS items.

The service aims to:

• give visibility of the prescription journey via the NHS App
• reduce burden on busy healthcare professionals by reducing some of the queries from patients to pharmacy teams and GP practices

NPPTS involves NHS England working with EPS IT suppliers to make more prescription readiness information available to patients.

Pharmacy IT system suppliers enable this new service. For most suppliers, the necessary data is readily available in their local systems.

The service will also support push notifications within the NHS App, alerting users when their prescriptions are ready for collection.

NHS England is piloting the prescription tracking feature via the NHS App. This feature is being gradually rolled out nationwide as pharmacy IT suppliers activate it.

All pharmacy IT suppliers were invited to participate in the project, with some advancing the work sooner than others. Four IT suppliers began piloting in the Autumn of 2024, with others expected to begin their own pilots in due course.

Progress reports and a list of the pharmacy IT suppliers progressing with the piloting and necessary integration work is available from NHS England’s webpage about this project.

Pharmacies that utilize a PMR system with this feature can collaborate with their PMR supplier to ensure that the PMR properly flags to the NPPTS. This will help prevent the PMR from encouraging patients to visit the pharmacy ‘too early,’ before their prescription is ready for collection.

Some system suppliers are updating their PMR timestamps to improve future interoperability with NPPTS.

Pharmacy teams should consider the following actions:

If your supplier is rolling out NPPTS

If your supplier is implementing the feature, you might consider:

• any of your patient communications will reference NPPTS.
• How you will refer to the feature if and where needed, in the event of prescription readiness queries
• you will communicate about the feature verbally or in writing.
• If standard operating procedures require updating

If your supplier is not yet rolling out NPPTS

If your supplier has not yet implemented the feature, you might consider:

• Checking NHS England’s webpage about this project for supplier updates related to this project.

Asking your supplier about their plans for integrating this feature.

NHS England may periodically issue communications to patients. Community pharmacy owners and teams may also consider issuing communications to help assist patients and reduce the number of incoming queries to pharmacy teams.

Community Pharmacy England and the Community Pharmacy IT Group have long supported:

• NHS App and other apps providing patients with prescription readiness information to improve the patient experience and reduce queries to pharmacy teams.
• The development of NHS IT standards in a way that supports any EPS IT supplier’s ability to activate this feature.

See NHS England’s webpage for information about the service.