Role in Quality Payments Scheme provides incentive to use electronic summary of patient care
NHS Digital has said that half of England’s community pharmacies are now using the Summary Care Record (SCR), a year after it was made available to the community.
The organisation said that nearly 6,000 pharmacies have begun to use the summary electronic record of patient data, with more than 20,000 professionals having completed the online training to do so.
In addition, almost 90% of community pharmacies have taken part in briefing sessions and the top 10 are accessing the SCR an average 50 times a week.
Mohammed Hussain, programme head for integrated pharmacy at NHS Digital, said: "It is really encouraging that half of community pharmacies now have access to SCR, allowing them to support patients with better informed and tailored care.
"From April 2017, accessing SCR will also become a NHS England measure under the Quality Payments Scheme (QPS) for community pharmacy, helping to drive up quality of care in this setting."
The QPS, which rewards pharmacies for achieving positive outcomes, will become part of their contractual framework with the NHS in 2017-18.
When the extension of the SCR to pharmacists was announced last year, it was described by the then minister for community care Alistair Burt as a move to make more of big untapped resource in the health service, and part of the effort to take the pressure off GPs.
The Government has invested £7.5 million on the relevant and training and tools.
Image by CDC, public domain via Wikimedia Commons
