Scottish Government
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Prescriptions go hi-tech
In a UK first, electronic prescriptions are going live between all of Scotland's GP practices and community pharmacies.
The electronic Acute Medication Service, or eAMS, is the first national system of its kind to go live anywhere in the UK, allowing doctors to send prescriptions electronically to pharmacies. It is now enabled in 99 per cent of Scotland's GP practices and pharmacies.
In addition to cutting the risk of errors between GPs and pharmacists, eAMS adds improvements such as using universal codes for virtually all medicines. This boosts efficiency and will lead to less reliance on traditional paper prescriptions.
Viewing an eAMS demonstration at Glasgow's LG Pharmacy today, Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said:
"We have a very successful prescribing system in Scotland, with around one million paper prescriptions written by GPs every week and dispensed in community pharmacies. But we can always do more and that's what eAMS will achieve.
"With eAMS we are now seeing more than 90 per cent of prescriptions submitted electronically.
"This shows the demand among GPs and pharmacists to work together to make the best use of the latest technology to improve services for patients. In Fife, we have recently started the early adopter phase of our Chronic Medication Service - where pharmacists and GPs work together using e-prescribing to help improve the care of people with long term conditions.
"Scottish medicine is rightly proud of its innovation and the development and adoption of this new technology expansion continues this valuable tradition."
Community Pharmacy Scotland's Chairman Martin Green said:
"Patient safety is central to the daily activity of dispensing prescriptions in Community pharmacies across the length and breadth of Scotland.
"The introduction of eAMS further contributes to safe systems of work, by improving the communication of information between GP practices and community pharmacies."
The eAMS system works by GPs submitting patient prescriptions electronically into the same online system used by pharmacists to access prescriptions, removing the need to write or transcribe the clinical data.
Patients will continue to be given traditional paper prescriptions in addition to the electronic version and this will continue until the system is well-established. There is no intention of moving to an entirely paperless prescribing system.
