Concerns raised over pharmacy nominations without patient consent

A ‘number of concerns’ have been received by Community Pharmacy England (CPE) about Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) pharmacy nominations and re-nominations occurring without patient consent.

In response, CPE has issued a reminder for pharmacy owners that patients must be able to change their pharmacy nomination without permission from the currently nominated pharmacy.

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And pharmacy owners cannot automatically nominate patients or reverse patient nominations without patient consent.

CPE has also expressed concern that certain IT functionality available to some pharmacy owners appears to facilitate automatic patient re-nomination, without patient consent. It is discussing this issue with NHS England.

Pharmacy owners have a legal responsibility, under the NHS Patient Demographics Service (PDS) Regulations 2013, to add a patient’s chosen pharmacy to the NHS system if the patient asks them to, CPE added.

NHS guidance for patients choosing a pharmacy states that ‘when you request a prescription online, you can have your prescription sent electronically to a pharmacy of your choice. Patients can also change their nomination within the NHS App.

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The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) guidance on patient consent and the EPS says that deliberately changing a patient’s EPS nomination without their consent could cause unnecessary delays to patients receiving medication, as well as undermining trust in the profession. It may also amount to a misuse of sensitive patient information in breach of data protection legislation.

According to CPE’s briefing on EPS nomination, there are four guiding principles that underpin the process:

• Plan how the EPS works and fully inform the patient;
• Don’t influence the patient’s choice;
• Update nomination details as soon as possible;
• Create a standard operation procedure, by using a written nomination consent form for example.

EPS is suitable for all patients, but those on regular repeats and those who opt to use the same pharmacy will see the most benefit from nomination.

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In September, pharmacy teams were invited to participate in a pilot for medicine readiness push notifications. The pilot aims to improve the prescription tracking experience for patients using the NHS App and test medicine readiness push notifications.

In the same month, a new family feature was piloted by NHS England which allowed patients to apply to add another profile to their NHS App online instead of going in person to their GP practice.