NHS promotes primary care drug dictionary

pharmafile | October 27, 2003 | News story | |   

A campaign to raise PCT awareness of the new Primary Care Drug Dictionary (PCCD) has been launched to promote its uptake among GPs and pharmacy IT system suppliers.

Launched in December, the PCCD is the first ever national NHS electronic database of primary care drugs, and is a key part of the NHS IT modernisation programme.

The PCCD has been specially designed to easily integrate with decision support, dispensing and reimbursement software to produce an integrated electronic resource for GPs and pharmacists.

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The Prescription Pricing Authority (PPA) is now distributing promotional posters to information and communications technology (ICT) leads and pharmaceutical/prescribing leads to encourage adoption of the system.

The PPA says the dictionary will be a fundamental component in the electronic transmission of prescriptions (ETP) and will eventually drive the generation of over 550 million prescription items every year. The system has been designed to be as flexible as possible for the NHS and drugs marketplace.

Pilots of NHS electronic prescribing were launched just over a year ago, and are now reaching the later stages of development and testing. Once a national standard is agreed and rolled out, ETP is expected to reduce prescribing errors and drive up clinical standards by gathering highly detailed and up-to-date prescribing data.

The PPA will host a conference at the end of February to promote understanding of the NHS programme for e-prescribing to pharmacists and dispensing doctors, NHS prescribers, PCTs and strategic health authorities.

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