Almost one third of pharmacies in England are now ready to dispense using release two of the electronic prescription service (EPS), and more than 200,000 patients have nominated a pharmacy to receive their electronic scripts, NHS Connecting for Health (CfH) figures have shown.

Despite initial worries from some pharmacists about the switch to release two, the latest deployment data indicates that roll-out is gathering pace. As of March 9, 3,698 pharmacy sites were ready to start using EPS release two, and 248,242 patient nominations had been set.

Sales and marketing director at Cegedim Rx Clive Eckett said there had been a "distinct increase in pharmacies ordering EPS release two in recent months".

"Over the last few months we have seen an increase in pharmacies ordering EPS release two in line with the figures published by CfH," he said.

Martin Jones, commercial manager at Positive Solutions, agreed the latest figures came as no surprise. "We've seen an active take-up from our customers," he told C+D. "The only problem has involved people getting hold of smartcards - some PCTs are very helpful, while some are, shall we say, less helpful."

Commenting on the CfH figures, Ian Taylor, managing director at RX Systems, said roll-out was going well from a pharmacy perspective. "I think it's progressing well - by the end of the year we expect that all those who want to be enabled will be enabled," he said.

He warned, however, that some service challenges that should have been addressed by now still remained. "There are still challenges around business continuity; for example there are challenges over the status of EPS if a business changes ownership," he said.

Martin Jones: seeing active take-up from customers	Suppliers warn of smart card hold up Pharmacists complain release two switch is 'problematic' EPS delay warnings for independents
	Leon Rudd, director of marketing for AAH Pharmaceuticals, called the uptake rate "encouraging", and said it demonstrated "that the pharmacy profession is seeing the value of electronic dispensing to their businesses and to the wellbeing of their patients".

But Andy Charlesworth, IT manager at Numark, said CfH's uptake figures seemed "very low". "Over 300,000 EPS release two patient nomination support forms have been requested from Numark by members during 2011 alone, so CfH's figures seem very low," he said.

He also urged pharmacists to start capturing nominations. "Ensure you've captured nominations in good time before your local surgery is ready, thus avoiding rushing the process," he said. "The longer you leave it, the worse it will be."

Looking ahead, Lindsay McClure, NHS IT lead for PSNC, said it was important that EPS deployment continued to be "tightly managed, controlled and supported, but not rushed".

"Every pharmacy contractor will need to consider their individual circumstances and carefully weigh up benefits, risks, opportunities and costs to determine the optimal time to upgrade," she said.

System suppliers have previously told C+D that they expect to make significant progress in deploying release two systems to pharmacies in 2012.