Following the recent rollout of Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) in detained estates (HM Prisons), NHS England has identified an issue where the patient’s nominated pharmacy details are being populated in the ‘Pharmacy Stamp Area’ of paper FP10 prescriptions and EPS tokens generated by prescribers – i.e. even tokens for non-nominated EPS prescriptions. This section would usually be kept blank when the prescription or non-nominated EPS token is printed and given to the patient to allow them to visit a different pharmacy to fulfil their prescription.

Handling FP10 paper prescriptions with pre-printed details in the pharmacy stamp area

Paper prescriptions with pre-printed details included in the “Pharmacy Stamp Area” of the form should continue to be dispensed (even if the pharmacy pre-printed address on the form does not match with the address of the pharmacy the form is presented to). In this situation, the pharmacy dispensing such prescriptions should:

  • simply cross out pre-printed details; or
  • over-stamp the “Pharmacy Stamp Area” with their own pharmacy details.

Pharmacy teams should note that this does not impact on prescription processing and that such prescriptions will still be reimbursed in line with usual arrangements.

Handling EPS tokens with pre-printed details in the pharmacy stamp area

This issue means that EPS prescription tokens printed by the prescriber could still have the nominated pharmacy address printed in the token pharmacy stamp area. If the patient has presented a non-nominated prescription to you, or a one-off nomination for your pharmacy, you can still dispense the EPS prescription.

You may cross through the nominated pharmacy address information where this is not your pharmacy and this is incorrect, however pricing of EPS prescriptions is of course carried out by processing of the electronic EPS message.

The pharmacy team does not need to contact the prescriber to request a change to the non-nominated prescription regarding the stamp-area-issue. If a pharmacy team member needs to contact the prison prescriber, they should look-up the prison, contact the main switchboard, and request to be connected to the healthcare team. These teams generally operate during core hours from 08:00 to 17:00, Monday to Friday, with some availability outside these hours.

Steps taken by NHS England

NHS England is aware of the issue and has logged it with the prison IT system provider. Efforts are underway to urgently resolve the problem to ensure future prescriptions/tokens comply with established standards and processes.

Additional support

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