The electronic prescription service (EPS) has generated a "huge workload" for pharmacists while taking it away from GPs and their staff with little associated benefits, Independent Pharmacy Federation (IPF) chairman Fin McCaul has told C+D in an exclusive interview.

"It's putting [the workload] on to community pharmacy in terms of nominations. But also in terms of printing the electronic prescriptions, giving patients the repeats and messages and informing the patient of this," Mr McCaul said.

His warning came after C+D revealed that less than 4 per cent of GPs were using the latest version of EPS, despite the NHS investing nearly £100 million in the project to date. The latest figures showed 61 percent of pharmacists have upgraded to EPS2. 

"We are informing PSNC about these burdens and making sure they are aware of this so that it's covered within the contract" Fin McCaul, IPF

More on the electronic prescription service ‘Tiny' percentage of GPs using paperless scripts Sector unity on IT is 'critical' DH must ‘exercise caution' in EPS 2 rollout

"We are informing PSNC about these burdens and making sure they are aware of this so that it's covered within the contract," Mr McCaul added. And there was not "a lot of benefit at the minute for pharmacy", he said. "Hopefully, with electronic payments, that can be amassed, but we've yet to see it." Mr McCaul added that the burden on pharmacy was "huge at the moment", and that the government's drive to reduce bureaucracy was in many instances making the problem worse.

"The NHS is going through huge amounts of change at the minute and there's a drive to reduce some of the red tape," Mr McCaul said. "But, in actual fact, a lot of the changes are putting increased red tape and an increased burden on pharmacies."

Although the General Pharmaceutical Council's plan to press ahead with revalidation was "fundamentally the right thing to do", Mr McCaul added that community pharmacy needed to be "mindful" of the burden it would impose on the sector.