Thirteen NHS trusts in England providing a mixture of acute, mental health and community services will receive a share of £16m to speed up implementation of e-prescribing.

Former Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Jeremy Hunt announced back in February that £78m would be made available to help trusts move away from paper prescriptions, after a study found that an estimated 237 million medication errors occur in the NHS in England every year.

"This is a large number, but 72 per cent have little/ no potential for harm. It is likely that many errors are picked up before they reach the patient, but we do not know how many," researchers from the York, Manchester and Sheffield universities wrote in the analysis.

A Short Life Working Group established in September 2017 found that electronic prescribing and medicines administration systems were some of the "most challenging digital health systems to implement in provider organisations". Figures from November 2017 indicated that 35 per cent of acute trusts and less than 12 per cent of mental health organisations had rolled out an ePMA system.

“There is evidence that electronic prescribing and medicines administration systems will improve safety for patients, reducing the risk of harm and ensuring high quality efficient patient care which is as safe as possible,” said Andrew Davies, NHS Improvement Director of Hospital Pharmacy.

The thirteen trusts to receive the funding are:

• Bolton NHS Foundation Trust (£1.02m)
• The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust (£750,000)
• Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust (£1.6m)
• Humber NHS Foundation Trust (£300,000)
• Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust (£940,000)
• Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (£820,000)
• University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust (£2.19m)
• Barts Health NHS Trust (£1.7m)
• East London NHS Foundation Trust (£740,000)
• East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust (£1.45m)  
• Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust (£1.17m)
• Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust (£1.62m)
• East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust (£1.7m).

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Contact the author: lpostelnicu@himss.org