Preferred Pharmacy

The preferred pharmacy section in Consultation Manager - Patient Details - Patient Preferences has previously allowed you to record the patients preferred pharmacy obtained from a list you have set up in Control Panel - File Maintenance. For paper prescriptions, this list remains fully functional, as it is possible that the patient’s preferred pharmacy is not enabled for EPS R2 functionality. However, when choosing a nominated dispenser, if electing a different pharmacy to the Preferred Pharmacy selection, the Preferred Pharmacy is changed to match the elected EPS Nominated Dispenser.

It is recommended that you add the pharmacy NACS code in Control Panel to existing and new preferred pharmacy entries. You can obtain this from the Nominated Dispensers search list in Patient Details . Adding the NACS code means that Vision can accurately match or mismatch the nominated and preferred pharmacy on the patient record.

Please note the following:

• If a patient has a Nominated Pharmacy set up, when EPS2 is enabled the Preferred Pharmacy details are no longer used. The Nominated Pharmacy is used by default for all prescriptions issued to the patient.
• If the patient does not have a Nominated Pharmacy the Preferred Pharmacy details are used by default for all prescriptions issued to this patient. (EPS2 eligibility still applies, in that a patient is not eligible for EPS2 prescriptions without a nomination prior to EPS2 phase 4.)
• If the Preferred Pharmacy differs from the Nominated Pharmacy an alert displays to enable you to notify the patient of the change to their dispensing pharmacy. Once informed the alert can be removed and the Preferred Pharmacy is subsequently changed to the same details as the Nominated Pharmacy to reflect this.

For example, a patient has their Preferred Pharmacy set to Boots and their Nominated Pharmacy set to Lloyds: If the practice is not EPS2 enabled the prescriptions for the patient are, by default, sent to Boots. If the practice becomes EPS2 enabled, the prescriptions for the patient is automatically sent to Lloyds by default instead. An alert displays in Consultation Manager to enable you to notify the patient of the change.

Reminder:

• Preferred Pharmacy is used to record the patients’ preference for their paper (FP10) prescriptions; this is added by the practice.
• EPS Nominated Dispensers is used to record the patients’ preference for their Electronic prescriptions; this is added by the practice or pharmacy and is transmitted via PDS.

The patients pharmacy preferences can be viewed in Consultation Manager select the Patient Details tab, then select Preferences tab.

If an EPS nomination is received that differs from the Preferred Pharmacy an EPS Nomination Mismatch message is shown in the Alerts pane.

**Important** Preferred Pharmacy - NACS Code

For existing and new preferred pharmacy entries (added in Control Panel - File Maintenance - Organisations which can then be selected in Consultation Manager - Patient Details), it is strongly recommended that you add the preferred pharmacy NACS code in the identifiers tab. If you do not add the NACS code to the preferred pharmacy and the same pharmacy is selected as the patient’s nominated dispenser with a different description, the mismatch alert displays in Consultation Manager. You can look up the NACS code in the nominated dispenser list in Consultation Manager - patient details.