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There are two main work streams for Information Management and Technology (IM&T) development in Wales:
Although these are independent work programmes they are actively communicating with each other to progress IT development across Wales.
Further information on IM&T developments in Wales can be obtained from:
Jocelyn Parkes, Principal Policy Advisor
Tel: 029 2073 0310
email: jocelyn.parkes@rpsgb.org
Details on both work streams will be regularly updated. Click on the links below:
The Welsh Assembly Government has established a work programme to deliver the IM&T agenda for community pharmacy. The new pharmacy contract covers both Wales and England, however Wales has the potential to develop its own solution to deliver the IM&T component.
A Pharmacy IM&T Programme Board has therefore been established to steer how electronic transmission of prescriptions (ETP) will be delivered in Wales and it sat for the first time in November 2005 to look at various delivery models for ETP and connectivity for pharmacy. The board has taken into account the differing architecture between Connecting for health in England and Informing healthcare in Wales and this has led to the decision to take a pragmatic approach in Wales and to deliver a phased programme for IT development.
Phase one will focus on the infrastructure, incorporating:
Phase one is designed to provide a corporate approach, firmly placing pharmacy within the NHS and therefore having access to many additional services.
Phase two will focus on an interim solution to ETP. The advantage of an interim solution is that it will firstly look at options for transfer of prescription data between general medical practitioners and community pharmacies, possibly through bar code type solutions of data capture and retrieval. A parallel work stream will also look at options for the electronic transmission of claims (ETC) to the Prescription Pricing Unit.
Phase three will address a full Welsh electronic prescription service (EPS), in line and in collaboration with the national IM&T architecture of Informing healthcare.
It is envisaged that this phased programme of work will provide infrastructure to support future access to Informing healthcare’s individual health record (IHR) initiative, as it develops over the coming years.
The programme board includes representatives from the Welsh Executive, Community Pharmacy Wales, Local Health Boards, Informing healthcare and Welsh Assembly Government, and is committed to keeping pharmacists informed of all developments through its HOWIS internet site and regular updates.
The goal of IHC is "to create a set of information and infrastructure services that enable the provision of integrated person-based information that can be used to integrate patient care across the NHS in Wales and with social care."
The IHC programme manages a portfolio of projects which will be phased to ensure benefits are delivered as early as possible, see www.wales.nhs.uk/ihc/home.cfm
It has been agreed that a pharmacy and medicines management work stream will be initiated by IHC. This work will address use of medicines-related information flows between primary and secondary care both on admission to hospital and on discharge and produce a business case for the technological requirements.
This important development follows a series of meetings between the IHC team and the Welsh Executive and other pharmacy organisations in Wales.
Access to the online Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin is now available to pharmacists in Wales. An agreement to provide access has been reached with the Access to Knowledge project of the Informing Healthcare programme.