From 1 April 2013 NHS England is responsible for authorising prescribing contractors to use the Electronic Prescription Service. This responsibility is included in paragraph 39A of Schedule 6 of the GMS Contract Regulations.

NHS England hereby authorise the following sites to use the Electronic Prescription Service.

• All prescribing sites that are already using EPS Release 2 (Annex 1) (this document is available on our archived website) and;
• All prescribing sites that confirmed a planned go live dates (this document is available on our archived website) under previous governance arrangements. To meet this criteria a date must have been entered in the tracking database prior to 12pm on 28 March 2013. (Annex 2)
• Sites planned since April 1 2013 (this document is available on our archived website).

Any prescribing sites not covered by this will need to follow the new authorisation process that will be published in due course.

If you would like more information please contact: epsimplementation@hscic.gov.uk or Tracey Grainger on traceygrainger@nhs.net

Electronic Prescription Service – Authorisation:

Operating Guidance 2013/14

I’m pleased to announce that NHS England has published the Electronic Prescription Service Release 2 authorisation operating guidance (this document is available on our archived website).

This publication is important to the NHS England’s area teams, Clinical Commissioning Groups and their IT providers.

The purpose of the operating guidance is to set out the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) Release 2 Authorisation Process for GP practices.   From 1 April 2013; NHS England is responsible for authorising GP practices to use EPS, as stated in the GMS Contract Regulations (Schedule 6, paragraph 39A).   This Operating Guidance is designed to ensure a clear governance model is in place to meet NHS England responsibilities for authorising GP practice go-lives with EPS Release 2.

EPS Release 2 go-live request form template

During this transition , the above form should be sent to epsimplementation@hscic.gov.uk who will forward it on to the area team for you.

The operating guidance for EPS release 2 will be kept under review.  NHS England will ensure they are achieving what they are designed to do to support future implementation and use of EPS release 2.

If you have any questions or would like more information please contact:  epsimplementation@hscic.gov.uk or patientsandinformation@nhs.net.