Online prescriptions await DoH decision

A major pilot of electronic prescriptions has been suspended pending confirmation of the national strategy from the Department of Health (DoH).

The Flexiscript Consortium, led by supplier SchlumbergerSema, has been running the pilot in Peterborough, one of three trials set up last summer.

Online prescriptions is one of the three applications being purchased at a country-wide level as part of the DoH's National Programme.

And until that strategy is finalised there is nothing more to be done, says SchlumbergerSema programme director Nigel Bell.

'We have learned all the lessons we can learn from a restricted pilot.

'What we are looking forward to is the DoH agreeing its strategy, communications that and taking this forward under the National Programme. Everything that can be done outside of the National Programme has now been done,' said Bell.

The DoH is evaluating suppliers for a series of contracts making up the National Programme. Local Service Providers will manage desktop delivery and provide a single point of contact for NHS users. National Applications Service Providers will develop and manage the eprescriptions, ebookings and Integrated Care Records System schemes.

The purchasing process for the ebooking system is on a separate timetable. Eight suppliers are on the shortlist for the contract, to be reduced to three by the end of May.

The Flexiscript Consortium is made up of SchlumbergerSema, Boots The Chemists, National Co-operative Chemists, UniChem, Cable & Wireless and Microsoft.