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House of Commons - Written Answers - 23.04.08
Prescriptions: ICT
Mr. Stephen O'Brien (Conservative, Eddisbury)
To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many and what percentage of (a) dispensing and (b) non-dispensing GPs were using the Electronic Prescriptions Service system in each month since its inception; and how many and what proportion of prescriptions were issued in each month since the inception of the Electronic Prescriptions Service by (i) dispensing and (ii) non-dispensing general practitioners.
Mr. Bradshaw (Minister of State for Health)
The month-by-month split between dispensing and non-dispensing general practitioners (GPs) using the electronic prescription service (EPS) is
not recorded. At present, it is not possible to differentiate between individual dispensing, and non-dispensing practice generated electronic prescription messages, and individual dispensing and non-dispensing GP prescribing behaviours.
The following table provides the combined total number of electronic prescriptions generated at both dispensing and non-dispensing doctor practices.
| Total number of EPS prescription messages generated by GPs | Total number of EPS dispense notification messages sent by pharmacy | |
2005 | ||
February | 607 | 158 |
March | 3,442 | 1,110 |
April | 2,887 | 1,284 |
May | 3,576 | 1,624 |
June | 3,394 | 700 |
July | 6,135 | 1,176 |
August | 6,432 | 1,118 |
September | 14,400 | 1,504 |
October | 46,039 | 1,485 |
November | 69,823 | 1,844 |
December | 68,365 | 2,451 |
2006 | ||
January | 87,074 | 1,594 |
February | 153,771 | 809 |
March | 260,898 | 3,476 |
April | 262,952 | 2,458 |
May | 439,427 | 2,227 |
June | 662,362 | 7,594 |
July | 816,584 | 4,248 |
August | 1,083,300 | 7,793 |
September | 1,362,209 | 8,955 |
October | 1,361,877 | 17,110 |
November | 1,539,616 | 22,396 |
December | 1,607,737 | 23,308 |
2007 | ||
January | 1,988,882 | 31,708 |
February | 2,223,368 | 44,690 |
March | 2,617,552 | 59,528 |
April | 2,493,531 | 51,913 |
May | 3,351,179 | 89,128 |
June | 3,575,681 | 126,382 |
July | 4,454,930 | 158,129 |
August | 4,982,637 | 191,288 |
September | 4,935,859 | 226,683 |
October | 6,291,931 | 273,948 |
November | 5,855,981 | 276,397 |
December | 5,573,366 | 255,016 |
2008 | ||
January | 6,897,355 | 370,909 |
February | 6,623,597 | 428,500 |
1 March to 17 March | 4,890,086 | 243,144 |
Total | 75,003,880 | 2,951,526 |
Mr. Stephen O'Brien:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many and what proportion of (a) general practitioners and (b) doctors in other settings are (i) able to issue and (ii) regularly issuing electronic prescriptions.
Mr. Bradshaw:
6,676 (79 per cent.) of general practitioner practices have had the software upgrades needed to operate the electronic prescription service (EPS), of which 5,433 (64.1 per cent.) have been confirmed by primary care trusts as able to issue electronic prescriptions. Currently, over 1.5 million electronic prescription messages are issued each week. The number of individual general practitioners and doctors in other settings that are able to and regularly use the EPS is not captured nationally.
Posted 23 April 2008