Welsh pharmacists get new IT incentives

Wales is stepping up its drive to implement electronic transfer of prescriptions and use of its NHSmail service by changing its incentive scheme for pharmacists.

At the moment, pharmacists can claim a £200 monthly fee for being able to connect to the NHS Wales network. From September, they will only be able to continue to claim the fee if they take part in phase two of the community pharmacy IM&T programme.

Phase two is being delivered in three releases, covering an NHS Wales complaint email service, use of a 2D-barcoded prescription service, and an Electronic Transmission of Claims (ETC) service.

The May edition of the Drug Tariff, which includes details of the changes to payments for pharmacists, says release one is ready for implementation and must be deployed across Wales by the end of September 2010.

Release two should be fully deployed by 30 September 2011, and release three, the electronic claims service, should be fully deployed by 31 March 2012.

The tariff says that failure to place an order for any of the releases of an NHS Wales compliant system or service within three months following the maximum deployment date could have a financial implication.

It could result in the £1,000 payment pharmacists were given in 2007-8 to support phase two implementation being reclaimed.

A briefing from the Primary Care Informatics Programme says the monthly fee was paid to pharmacists in Wales so they were not financially disadvantaged in comparison to pharmacists in England because of the later establishment of the IM&T agenda in Wales.

However, since the connectivity funding became available in January 2007 more pharmacists in Wales have benefitted than pharmacists in England, where payment is linked to use of release one of its Electronic Prescription Service.

The PCIP said the new arrangements would now give pharmacists in Wales parity with their counterparts in England.