Making your system work for you (and requested features)
Published on: 10th September 2014 | Updated on: 13th November 2025
It’s more important than ever for pharmacy teams to get the most out of their IT systems. You can help shape system improvements by sharing feedback with IT suppliers. Your input may also be added to the wishlist of future features.
Pharmacy teams rely on digital systems every day to deliver NHS services safely and efficiently. The critical NHS Digital Services for Integrated Care (DSIC) programme helps ensure that pharmacy IT systems are developed in the right way—so they support your work, align with NHS pharmacy services, protect patient data, and connect smoothly with the wider NHS.
Read more: NHS DSIC
The Community Pharmacy IT Group (CP ITG) has published a roadmap and checklist based on feedback from pharmacy teams. It includes training suggestions and features that teams would like their IT systems to offer.
This checklist is designed to help pharmacy teams when choosing or reviewing IT suppliers. It also supports IT suppliers in planning future developments—though suppliers will mainly act on direct feedback from pharmacy owners using their systems.
Pharmacy teams are encouraged to email or otherwise contact their IT supplier with suggestions. The checklist includes columns to help pharmacy owners and IT suppliers assess current systems and consider future improvements.
CP ITG has compiled a list of NHS IT projects and created a chart showing how these may affect pharmacy IT suppliers.
See: Gantt Chart (slide) and Gantt Chart (spreadsheet). The chart can be viewed as a national overview or adapted by individual IT suppliers.
See below for a more focussed guide to assessing key requirements
Choosing the right IT system for your pharmacy is an important decision. It can affect everything from patient safety and staff workload to business efficiency and compliance.
To help you assess your current or prospective system, Community Pharmacy England has also developed a practical guide:
Assessing pharmacy IT solutions: guide and checklist
This document supports pharmacy teams to:
- Review how well their system meets operational and clinical needs
- Identify areas for improvement or supplier discussion
- Align with NHS and CP ITG principles for safe, usable, and interoperable technology
What does the assessment cover?
The guide includes nine key areas to consider:
- Access control – e.g. smartcard use, multi-factor authentication
- Archiving – e.g. audit trails, data retention
- Assurance and interoperability – e.g. NHS England assurance, system integration
- Digital clinical safety – e.g. risk logs, safety standards, supplier documentation
- Connectivity – e.g. hardware compatibility, internet access, NHS Spine compliance
- Data protection and impact – e.g. DPIAs, privacy notices, DSP Toolkit
- Training – e.g. onboarding, refresher materials, support for locums
- Updates – e.g. automatic patches, antivirus, missed update alerts
- Usability and contracts – e.g. user experience, workload impact, innovation, service levels
Each section includes prompts and links to relevant NHS and Community Pharmacy England resources.
A separate resource — the Pharmacy IT Systems: Roadmap and checklist — is also available to help you review system features and functionality. You can use it alongside the assessment template to get a fuller picture of how your system performs and where improvements may be needed. See section above for this.
Some of the most requested wishlist features include:
- Fast, touch-screen systems for quicker recording of clinical observations and actions
- Better compatibility with other systems and health records
- Support for hand-held devices
- Integration with the NHS App
- Faster, more direct access to Summary Care Records (SCR)
- Resilience features—such as affordable business continuity options if broadband fails
Top EPS-related requests include:
- Confirmation that prescriptions have reached the Spine, reassuring pharmacy teams that the Pricing Authority can access and price them
- Tools to prevent incorrect exemption status being applied
- Alerts to prevent prescriptions reaching the 180-day EPS deadline
If you have feedback about training, features, or priorities, please use the IT feedback form.
You can also email your IT supplier with ideas about which features they should prioritise. The system features list may help you decide which improvements matter most to your pharmacy.
See also:
- Pharmacy-related systems and apps
- System specifications
- List of system suppliers and their contact details
- Reporting or feeding back about IT issues
- You can email your IT supplier with ideas about training and future developments.
- See also: Reporting or feeding back about IT issues
For more information on this topic please email it@cpe.org.uk
