It is crucial that independent contractors start gearing up for paperless prescriptions now, as GPs have been given the authority to set their own go-live date for the electronic prescription service (EPS), pharmacy trade body Numark has warned.

Numark warned pharmacists against waiting for GPs to upgrade, as surgeries will only need to give eight weeks' notice on the national EPS tracking database before making the switch, NHS IT body Connecting for Health (CfH) announced last week. After PCTs dissolve on April 1, GPs will no longer need authorisation from the NHS to implement the second phase of EPS.

The tracking database and EPS deployment map will remain online beyond April, while CfH will start sending weekly email updates to LPCs, advising them of which pharmacies could be affected by planned GP launches.

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	But independents risked leaving it too late if they waited for their GPs to start upgrading, said Numark IT services manager Andy Charlesworth, as he advised pharmacists to take immediate action. "If you are waiting until your GP is ready, you are waiting too long," he warned.

"The process of capturing and recording nominations takes a long time – consider 10 minutes per patient for 5,000 patients in an average size pharmacy. It could take five months for one person working full time on this," he said. "Ask yourself this question: if your GP practice informed you that they'd be going live in the next eight weeks, do you have or could you have all of your patients nominated on the spine in that time?"

Latest CfH figures show that 794 GP practices have either upgraded or ordered EPS release two systems to date. In October last year, only 321 surgeries had upgraded to the new system.

From April 1, the NHS Commissioning Board will take over responsibility for the EPS allowance, as well as the distribution of tokens and smartcards. In its latest update to pharmacies, PSNC said it expected existing EPS support, which had previously seen PCTs organise local events and meetings, to become unavailable in some areas.

Read PSNC's full update here.