“Due to global IT outages, services in some community pharmacies…are disrupted today”, the NPA said today (July 19).
The pharmacy body added that the outage has affected “the accessing of prescriptions from GPs and medicine deliveries”.
"We're urgently raising this issue with NHS England (NHSE)," it said, adding that it urged "patients to be patient whilst visiting their pharmacy".
Meanwhile, the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) said this morning that it was “very sorry to hear that global IT outages are causing disruption to some NHS services today”.
Read more: ‘No straightforward solution’: GP tech issue causes pharmacy ‘confusion’
“Our website and other online services are all working as normal, but we are monitoring closely for any impact,” it added.
An NHSE spokesperson said that the NHS “is aware of a global IT outage and an issue with” GP IT system EMIS, which is “causing disruption in the majority of GP practices”.
“The NHS has long standing measures in place to manage the disruption, including using paper patient records and handwritten prescriptions”, as well phone systems to contact practices, they said.
They added that there is “currently no known impact on 999 or emergency services”.
EPS affected
Community Pharmacy England (CPE) said that “some users of the community pharmacy EMIS ProScript electronic prescription service (EPS) system are also being affected”.
“EMIS ProScript has advised its pharmacy users that it will issue further updates as it works to fix these issues,” it added.
The negotiator said that pharmacy teams experiencing issues should “use the normal reporting routes, which start with contacting [their] IT supplier”.
Read more: GPs switch off update patient record function in new Pharmacy First IT twist
But it added that if IT system suppliers are unable to resolve the problem “due to it being outside their control”, suppliers should:
- Escalate the issue to the NHS National Service Desk (NSD) to co-ordinate resolution and
- Report progress to the pharmacy and provide them with the NSD national incident number (NIN)
“Where a pharmacy IT system is unavailable, the pharmacy owner will need to activate relevant parts of their business continuity plan,” CPE said.
Urgent prescriptions
The pharmacy negotiator added that GP practices that cannot access their IT system will activate their own business continuity plans.
These are “likely to include issuing hand-written prescriptions where there is an urgent need for patients to access a medicine”, it added.
Read more: IT chaos left 3/4 of pharmacies unable to complete Pharmacy First consultations
And it said that where patients present at a pharmacy seeking a supply of a prescription medicine and their GP practice is unable to issue an urgent prescription, pharmacies should direct them to 111 online or the NHS 111 phone service.
Patients will then be able to “obtain a referral to a pharmacy under the urgent supply pathway of the Pharmacy First service”, it added.
“Lots of pharmacy systems”
Responding to an NHSE post on X (formerly Twitter), pharmacist Robin Conibere said that the outage is “also affecting a lot of pharmacy IT systems”.
“[It] might be worth mentioning that as they are also part of the NHS family,” he added.
Read more: Contractors ‘still getting nowhere’ a week on from Pharmacy First IT crash
Meanwhile, pharmacist and former Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) England board chair Thorrun Govind said on X this morning that “electronic prescriptions currently aren’t working”.
She added that she felt “really sorry for patients trying to navigate this” as she battled to secure her own prescription.
