Call for EPS outage solution after problems persist
Some pharmacies were still experiencing problems with their Cegedim EPS systems as late as Friday
EXCLUSIVE
Pharmacists have called for a solution to a fault with electronic prescription service (EPS) system supplier Cegedim after an outage early last week left businesses with a backlog of prescriptions.
Some pharmacies using Cegedim software were unable to download prescriptions for 24 hours over last Monday (June 6) and Tuesday, while others told C+D they were still experiencing problems as late as Friday.
"Stuck" prescriptions
Cegedim told C+D today (June 13) that it has been "working round the clock" to remedy prescriptions that have become "stuck" as a result of the outage.
It has been collaborating with the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) to rectify affected pharmacies and prescriptions, it said. It is planning to issue a "barcoded solution" to individual pharmacies with "clear instructions" on how to re-request affected prescriptions, it added.
In its own update on the outage, issued last Friday evening, HSCIC said Cegedim was reprocessing some of the affected prescriptions, with work on this expected to carry on into the weekend. HSCIC would continue to assist Cegedim in this, it added.
“We just want an end to it”
Pharmacists at Widnes Pharmacy in the north west of England told C+D on Friday that their local GP surgery was refusing to reprint affected prescriptions.
“We don’t mind the backlog. We just want an end to it and a solution,” they wrote on Twitter.
@blmerriman @CandDAnnabelle @ChemistDruggist @Junel94 @hscic This is a small example of our issue. Pages & pages!! pic.twitter.com/Ems0QlXSuR
— WLNP (@WidnesPharmacy) June 10, 2016
The previous day, community pharmacist Chaan Iqbal said that although his pharmacy was receiving some prescriptions on the system, others had to be manually downloaded from the spine after becoming "stuck".
"If [the issue] remains unresolved, we may end up having to request that GPs cancel the stuck prescriptions and re-issue them," he posted on the C+D website.
"Back to normal"
Some pharmacies found that the outage had been resolved over the weekend.
Amanda Smith, manager of Heath Pharmacy in Huddersfield, told C+D today that the pharmacy's EPS issues had been sorted, after having resorted to asking its local GP surgery to print EPS tokens three days earlier.
@ChemistDruggist @WidnesPharmacy @Hawkarine @amishpatel1985 @CandDBeth No problems here now
— Amanda Smith (@HLPAmanda) June 13, 2016
Kent contractor Amish Patel told C+D today that his EPS system seemed to be "back to normal".
What caused the outage?
Cegedim Rx suffered a service interruption on its message broker in England on the evening of June 6, the company told C+D. The message broker manages the transfer of electronic prescriptions from GP surgeries to the NHS spine, and then on to pharmacies, it said.
The fault was thought to be rectified when it was initially diagnosed, but subsequently reoccurred, Cegedim said. The system then had to be “temporarily halted due to the backlog of traffic” caused by the fault, it said.
It took “some time” to restore traffic. This was done in stages to “monitor and control” it and get the service “fully and safely back to normal online operation”, Cegedim said.
Pharmacies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were not affected, it stressed.
Are you still experiencing EPS problems?
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