The government has announced that there are no plans to allow patients to nominate a distance selling pharmacy (DSP) through the NHS app.
Currently, patients need to register with the DSP through their website or by contacting them directly to nominate them to receive prescriptions.
The NHS App does not currently allow direct nomination of DSPs. Patients can nominate a pharmacy through the NHS App, but this is primarily for high street pharmacies (brick and mortar).
Baroness Merron, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care, explained that a discovery exercise completed in January explored this option and concluded that within the current landscape of DSPs there are several challenges that could impact user experience and timely access to medicines whhich has been communicated to relevant DSP stakeholders.
“There are no current plans to allow patients to directly nominate a distance selling pharmacy (DSP) from within the NHS App,” she added.
“The NHS App supports seamless pharmacy services by allowing patients to order repeat prescriptions, nominate their preferred pharmacy, and manage their medication.
“A new prescription tracker feature means that nearly 1,500 pharmacies are now offering the new prescription tracking service through the NHS App, which provides updates on when prescriptions are ready to be collected. Work has also commenced on an ‘in App’ notification which will enhance this feature further.”
Nominating a DSP helps streamline the prescription process, especially for repeat prescriptions, and can support social distancing by reducing the need to collect paper prescriptions from GP practices and then deliver them to the pharmacy.
Speaking at the Clinical Pharmacy Congress in May, Rahul Singal, chief pharmacy and medicines information officer at NHS England, had told delegates that a redesign of the app that would allow this functionality was expected by July.
