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Richard Jefferson - get involved

Pharmacists need to get more involved in technology innovation in the health service instead of just being end users of systems designed by people €who don't understand the job€, according to Richard Jefferson, a senior IT manager at NHS England.

€Technology can be brilliant but if it doesn't address the problem, it is redundant.€ As NHS England's head of programme commissioning, he admitted to problems with EPS but said that many improvements had been made to get it closer to being able to €deliver day in and day out€. This is vital now a third of all prescriptions were transmitted in this way and 60 per cent of GPs were signed up to the service, said Mr Jefferson.

Dropping a strong hint that write-access to summary care records might not be as far off as some have feared, he commented that, €it is not just about receiving information from GPs; pharmacists need to be able to contribute too€. Mr Jefferson urged pharmacists to get involved in Code4Health, a programme that aims to bring together individuals and organisations to share ideas, change working practices and build solutions to improve healthcare.

However, he said, while connectivity within the NHS was critical to getting the best value from limited resources, there would always be times when only faceto- face interactions would do, particularly for the elderly. Other issues Mr Jefferson touched on included information sharing between UK countries and the need for standardisation across patient medication record suppliers so €a common way of working€ across pharmacy could emerge.