Nomination

What is Nomination?

Nomination gives patients the option to choose, or nominate, a dispensing contractor, (for example, a pharmacist), to which their acute, repeat and repeat dispensing prescriptions can be sent automatically via the Electronic Prescription Service. This removes the need for most patients to call at their GP practice to collect a paper prescription form.

Note - Patients are not obliged to nominate a dispensing contractor. However, if the patient does not nominate, prescriptions cannot be digitally signed and Vision 3 reverts to using barcoded prescriptions which must be manually signed (as per EPS1).

Patients can choose to nominate up to three dispensing contractors at any one time, including:

  • One community pharmacy;
  • One dispensing appliance contractor; and,
  • One dispensing GP practice (if eligible). You cannot record the nomination of a dispensing GP in Vision 3 unless you are the dispensing GP practice.

Patients can only nominate a place to receive their electronic prescriptions that is using release two of the Electronic Prescription Service. Within Vision 3, you can assist the patient by searching for such contractors.

Please note the following:

  • If a patient has a Nominated Pharmacy set up, when EPSR2 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.
  • 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 EPSR2 enabled the prescriptions for the patient are, by default, be sent to Boots. If the practice becomes EPSR2 enabled, the prescriptions for the patient are 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.