Making your system work for you (and requested features)

Following discussions at its meetings and feedback from pharmacy teams, the Community Pharmacy IT Group (CP ITG) published the Pharmacy system wishlist and briefing including training and items that pharmacy teams would like their IT systems to include. 

The full list is intended to assist pharmacy teams discussing future development of systems with their suppliers or selecting a system supplier. It is also intended to assist pharmacy system suppliers with their considerations for future development, although suppliers will primarily act on the direct input from those pharmacy contractors that use their system. It is essential that pharmacy staff assist their suppliers by providing email feedback for their system suppliers.

Community Pharmacy IT Group (CP ITG) has set out a list of NHS IT projects and charted these which could be relevant to pharmacy suppliers:

See: Gantt Chart (slide) and Gantt Chart (spreadsheet). The chart can be set to relate to ‘all contractors’ or can be used as a template by an individual system supplier.

Some of the wishlist top requested features include: 

• Speedy to use, touch-screen systems that enable quicker recording or access to clinical observations, actions and progress;
• more compatibility with other systems and health records; 
• compatibility with hand-held devices; 
• compatibility with the NHS App;  
• more ‘direct’ and speedier SCR access; and 
• resilience – with affordable business continuity options if the pharmacy’s broadband connection fails. 

Top EPS features include:

• ‘Claim amend functionality’
• Providing confirmation that prescriptions have been sent to the Spine so there is further reassurance the Pricing Authority can access these and then price them
• Mechanisms to prevent the wrong exemption status being applied
• Effective alerts so that prescriptions will not reach the 180 EPS deadline period.

If you have any further feedback regarding training, features or prioritisation of the listings then please submit your thoughts using the IT feedback form or contact Community Pharmacy England’s Community Pharmacy IT Policy Manager. The list will be updated by the CP ITG based on feedback from community pharmacy teams and suppliers. 

Submit your email ideas to your supplier to explain how you think they should plan priority developments in future. The system features list may help you to think about your preferred features. 

See: Choosing/changing a system supplier

See also:

• Pharmacy-related systems and apps
• System specifications
• List of system suppliers and their contact details
• Reporting or feeding back about IT issues

Submit your email ideas to your PMR supplier to explain how you think they should plan training and plan priority developments in future. If you have queries on this webpage or you require more information please contact it@cpe.org.uk. You can also request for training and functionality items to be added to the CP ITG IT supplier wishlist by contacting it@cpe.org.uk. See also: Reporting or feeding back about IT issues