EXCLUSIVE

Pharmacies in Sheffield and branches of Day Lewis around England will be the first to benefit from the nationwide rollout of the summary care record (SCR), C+D has learned.

Some pharmacies in the city and branches of the multiple are due to be granted read-only access to the record “in the next week or so”, ​the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) said on Monday (November 16).

This would form the start of a “rolling programme” that will continue until every pharmacy in the country has records access, HSCIC said. The process will be “fluid” and different regions will be able to implement records access "at their own pace", SCR programme head Richard Ashcroft told C+D.

"We’ll start to publish those areas that have started to go live, so we’re very open and transparent,” he added.

Mohammed Hussain, commissioning manager for strategic services at NHS England, told C+D that the commissioning body's area teams will co-ordinate the rollout through existing relationships with both local professional networks (LPNs) for pharmacy and local pharmaceutical committees (LPCs).

Day Lewis pharmacists "really excited"

Day Lewis told C+D its pharmacists are "really excited" by the prospect of using the SCR. The multiple will start upgrading the smartcards of its affected pharmacies next Monday (November 23), and plans to go live with records access "in a couple of weeks", said the multiple's head of pharmacy Tim Rendell.

Mr Rendell is keen for Day Lewis to be an "early adopter" of the technology, as he wants to "take advantage of the benefits as soon as possible", he added.

Over the past month, C+D has revealed that pharmacies will be able to opt-out of the SCR rollout and will not be reimbursed for the upfront costs of implementing access until they go live with the service. 

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