Pharmacists were forced to sort through piles of old prescriptions earlier this week after an NHS IT update threw the electronic prescription service (EPS) into chaos.

An upgrade last weekend to the spine – the central NHS information system – flooded pharmacies with prescriptions from as far back as April, pharmacists told C+D on Wednesday (August 27). The update also stopped some pharmacists claiming for items they dispensed through EPS, while some prescriptions arrived with invalid digital signatures from GPs, leaving pharmacists unable to process them.

The Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) said the issues had been resolved yesterday (August 28) but advised dispensers to stay vigilant to ensure patients did not receive duplicate medication.

HSCIC admitted the update had caused a "number of issues" across all dispensing systems, despite saying on Wednesday (August 27) that Spine 2 – the name of the updated model – was "performing well" and telling C+D that problems were only affecting "tens" of prescriptions.

Pharmacy IT suppliers voiced concerns that technical difficulties could result in patients receiving old prescriptions or pharmacists being unable to claim reimbursement.

Martin Jones, chief commercial officer of Positive Solutions, said he received "tens" of calls on Tuesday (August 26) about old prescriptions reappearing on pharmacy systems. This prompted the company to put out an "urgent clinical message" to all its customers. "There's always the chance that somebody would dispense [an old prescription] by accident... but I would hope that a) people are vigilant and b) we've warned them, so they've picked it up," he told C+D.

Money worries

Director of pharmacy at RX systems Shanel Raichura was "quite concerned" that some of his customers were unable to make claims for items they dispensed, as it was nearing the end of the month and pharmacists had to send off claims "in a timely manner". "We've got people working extended hours to cope with any issues that are occurring," he told C+D.

Systems supplier AAH also said its service desk received had a "significant number" of calls related to problems after the update.

But Cegedim managing director Simon Driver told C+D that very few of its customers had experienced problems and the upgrade to Spine 2 had gone "extremely smoothly and efficiently". "HSCIC are to be congratulated on carrying out a virtually seamless transition," he said.

Piling on the work

Pharmacists told C+D that old prescriptions appearing on their system had caused confusion and extra workload.

Amanda Smith, manager of Heath Pharmacy in Halifax, told C+D that the pile of old prescriptions received on Tuesday, which the pharmacy had not dispensed, was "three quarters of an inch" thick. More old scripts arrived on Wednesday, she said, although they also contained prescriptions for items the surgery had previously dispensed.

About 50 prescriptions that had been dispensed two months ago appeared on the system of Alderman's Pharmacy in London, owner Atul Shah reported. It took him a full working day to process them. "My dispenser started printing them, and I looked at one or two prescriptions and recognised them, that's when we realised. You've done all that work for nothing," he told C+D.

	Did you experience difficulties with EPS this week?