Community pharmacy teams who have updated their dispensing processes to consider the different actions required for electronic prescriptions are benefitting most from the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS), according to PwC’s EPS costing study published back in 2017.

The PwC study, commissioned by NHS Digital and agreed with NHS England and PSNC, set out to assess the costs and benefits associated with EPS Release 2 compared to paper prescriptions.

PSNC, NHS England and NHS Employers worked with NHS Digital during to support the design of the independent study undertaken by PwC. Work included visits to a range of pharmacies across England, which included time and motion studies at those pharmacies and interviews with pharmacy team members, as well as collecting feedback on EPS from a larger group of contractors and their teams via an online survey.

From PwC’s findings, PSNC and NHS Digital have identified key points which will be of interest to pharmacy contractors and their teams, including those which may help pharmacy teams to better utilise EPS Release 2. These key points and further information have been compiled into the following Briefings:

• Pharmacy EPS costs and benefits study: key points and tips for community pharmacy contractors
• Pharmacy EPS costs and benefits study: key points and tips for community pharmacy teams

The full PwC reports are also available here: EPS study and EPS study learnings.

Return to IT / Funding and Statistics webpage: IT and EPS allowances

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