First mentioned as part of the five-year pharmacy contract in England announced in 2019, the DMS went live as an essential service on February 15, 2021. Under the service, hospitals can digitally refer patients to community pharmacies for advice on newly prescribed medicines or changed prescriptions.

According to a tweet from the “We are primary care” NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSE&I) account last Friday (April 1), between February and December 2021, community pharmacy teams reviewed more than 80,000 patient referrals sent from NHS trusts, which prevented more than 3,500 cases of patients being readmitted to hospital within 30 days of discharge.

Encouraging more patient referrals

Praising the DMS, England’s chief pharmaceutical officer David Webb said the service “improves the transfer of care by significantly reducing avoidable harm and preventing readmissions”.

He urged NHS trusts to “make discharge safer for your patients by referring patients to community pharmacy for medicines reconciliation and follow up”.

As of April 1, acute trusts are being incentivised to increase referrals into the community pharmacy DMS.

According to the latest data from NHS Business Services Authority, contractors in England claimed for 80,283 DMS referrals between March 2021 and January 2022.

Pharmacy owners told C+D in February that they had had mixed levels of success with the DMS one year on since its launch, with some praising the “prompt” and “thorough information” now coming from hospitals via the service and others saying they were keen to offer the service, but had not yet had any patient referrals.


What has your experience of the DMS been so far? Share your views on the C+D Community.