Whittington Health NHS Trust rolls out electronic prescribing

Whittington Health NHS Trust has deployed an electronic prescription solution (EPS) from CLEO Systems in its community heart failure team to replace paper prescriptions.

The EPS, which began being rolled out in August 2024, is intended to help the trust enhance prescription management, improve patient experience and outcomes, and support its commitment to sustainability.

Joseph Grayson, pharmacy technician, pharmacy digital and informatics lead at Whittington Health, said: “The deployment is going very well, and we are looking forward to reaping the benefits, particularly supporting GPs in our area.

“Traditionally, when community patients require medication, requests were often sent to GPs to issue prescriptions.

“With CLEO EPS, community teams can issue prescriptions directly and electronically, alleviating the burden on GPs”.

He added that the benefits of the EPS would be measured through quality improvement.

The implementation at Whittington Health, an integrated health organisation that provides hospital and community care services to 500,000 people living in Islington, Haringey and other London boroughs, is expected to bring benefits such as being more convenient and timely for patients to access medication, reducing burden on GPs and reducing the risk of misplaced or lost prescriptions.

CLEO EPS also includes additional cost centres (Y-codes) to address the standardisation of the cost code charging model across primary and secondary care.

Emma Dew, sales and marketing director at CLEO Systems, said: “We are delighted to be working with Whittington Health on this deployment and it is great to see the benefits being recognised already, reducing the burden for GPs which is such a positive impact for trusts, GP’s and patients alike.”

Following the implementation in the community heart failure team, Whittington Health plans to roll out the EPS to its other community sites. The 24 month contract began in April 2024.

Meanwhile, the CLEO EPS system, which first launched in 2022, was implemented across some outpatient community services at Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust in September 2024.

It has also been deployed in the pregnancy assessment unit at Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust in July 2024, and at four north east London trusts in 2023.