Patient consent requirements for electronic Repeat Dispensing (eRD) have been temporarily suspended to encourage wider use of the system during the COVID-19 pandemic.

NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSE&I) have written to community pharmacies and GP practices to explain the changes to the consent model for eRD and to highlight this opportunity for eRD to be further utilised to benefit more patients.

These changes are currently due to remain in place until 30th September 2020, at which point they will be reviewed.

GP practices have been advised by NHSE&I that they should utilise eRD during this period by:

• requesting from NHSBSA the list of their patients that are most suitable for eRD, if not already done, by emailing nhsbsa.epssupport@nhs.net;
• screening the list of patients to adjust it as needed;
• contacting relevant patients that use EPS that items are being converted to eRD (making use of NHSBSA contact templates); and
• adjusting privacy notices to explain that relevant patients may have their prescriptions converted to eRD.

PSNC encourages pharmacy teams and LPCs to support their GP practice colleagues with helping patients to benefit from the advantages of eRD use.

Resources

You may wish to help explain the benefits of eRD to patients via animation, letter, flyer or poster. Alternatively, there are direct contact templates available in the form of email, text message, and social media.

GP practices could be directed to the Wessex eRD handbook, NECS e-learning and the eRD readiness checklist.

Read more and find further resources at: eRD.

News story updated: The review date referenced within this article was amended from June 30th 2020 to September 30th 2020.