Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to introduce a digital prescription scheme for patients who have repeat prescriptions.

Digital prescriptions are already available. The Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) is a collection of IT systems, used in primary care, that interact with each other via a central national spine. It is how National Health Service electronic prescriptions in primary care are generated, transmitted and received, and allows prescribers to send prescriptions electronically to a dispenser, such as a pharmacy. The EPS supports two schemes for patients with regular repeat medicines: firstly, repeat prescribing, which allows the setting up, ordering, producing and sending of prescriptions and the review of medication. This allows prescribers to oversee the process and for patients to order their medicines if and when they are needed via their general practice (GP) surgery, the NHS App or another online service or app. Secondly, there is Electronic Repeat Dispensing, which allows a GP to send a series of prescriptions to the national spine in one go. These are held securely, accessible only by the patient’s pharmacy, which repeat dispenses against a prescription at appropriate intervals, so that there is no need to contact the GP to order them each time.

In addition, the NHS App allows for patients to digitally request and manage their repeat prescriptions.