Latest EPS error causes 'nightmare' end to week
Pharmacists nationwide have been forced to turn away patients and work overtime after a problem with the NHS' IT system locked them out of the electronic prescription service (EPS).
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Pharmacists have been forced to turn away patients and work overtime after a problem with the NHS IT system locked them out of the electronic prescription service (EPS). Pharmacists first reported not being able to access the service with their smartcard last Thursday (October 16), with some still locked out the following day. They slammed the lack of communication from the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) and told C+D that the experience had been a "nightmare". HSCIC told C+D it had identified "an issue with smartcard authentification" which may have caused "difficulties for some users" trying to access services linked to the spine - the central NHS IT system - on Thursday and Friday. BT had deployed an "overnight fix" which had "improved" the problem but not solved it, HSCIC said on Friday. The organisation apologised for any inconvenience the outage caused. It had finally resolved the problems on Friday evening, it said today (October 20). It did not know how many pharmacies had been affected, it added. In an email seen by C+D, IT systems supplier Helix Health told its pharmacy customers on Thursday that HSCIC had only informed it of the problem with the spine an hour after contractors had been affected. Pharmacy manager Clark Edison told C+D he was forced to turn patients away because he could not dispense electronic prescriptions, while superintendent Stewart Kelly said his staff had to work late to catch up on missed prescriptions.
Pharmacy Voice said on Friday that it had been "inundated" with feedback from pharmacists experiencing problems and had told HSCIC that the "unsatisfactory" situation needed "urgent" attention. Chief executive Rob Daracott warned that the "huge number of issues" with EPS "can't continue for much longer" and patients would "feel the brunt" of the problems.
The outage was the latest in a series of problems with EPS. Earlier this month, an EPS error meant pharmacies may have dispensed prescriptions that were not intended for patients, and an upgrade to the spine in August flooded pharmacies with prescriptions from as far back as April.
EPS outage: the Twitter reaction@CandDSamuel 3hr connection issues, surgery closed. Only alternative to offer patients phone updates and free delivery tomorrow. EPS fail! — emma (@oz_valdo) October 16, 2014@CandDSamuel EPS still down here on the East Coast, had to turn a couple of patients back to get FP10's for normal Rx. Been since 10am yest. — Clark Edison (@ClarkAEdison) October 17, 2014@CandDSamuel @hscic about 10:30 16/10 we first lost connection, we have been 100‰ without #EPSr2 since then after @HelixHealthUK disabled it — alun phillips (@ghostocain) October 17, 2014@CandDSamuel the silence from HSCIC is the most annoying aspect. I'd rather they be open about issues, & give realistic outcomes/timeframes. — PopulusPharma (@pillmanuk) October 16, 2014@CandDSamuel maybe it's slipped a disc? No connectivityat all yesterday day - major catchup with o/time last night, and extra staff today! — Stewart Kelly (@stewartkelly01) October 17, 2014@CandDSamuel @hscic definitely, someone should be keeping us informed of developments and timescales for resolution! — Stewart Kelly (@stewartkelly01) October 17, 2014@CandDSamuel @CPWYRobbie #pharmacy problems all day long and our main surgery eps everything ! Nightmare day — Emz (@Momma57337692) October 16, 2014 |
