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Pharmacists in Leeds will be able to send updates to GPs on patients who have their flu vaccination in pharmacies from 14 October 2019, as part of a two-week pilot.
The pilot, run by NHS Digital, will allow 113 pharmacies, using PharmOutcomes, to send information on whether a patient has received their flu vaccination directly to 81 GP practices that use TPP SystmOne.
Speaking at The Pharmacy Show in Birmingham on 6 October 2019, Sarah Aggrey, project manager at NHS Digital, said the pilot would see the transfer of “800 flu messages in that two-week period”.
She added that after “successful completion of the first of type pilot tests, we will be able to roll it out nationally,” which she said was scheduled for “the end of October [or] early November [2019]”.
NHS Digital had previously said in July 2019 that just four in ten GPs would be able to receive data transfers from pharmacies as only one GP IT system was “on track to developing their end of that supply chain”.
Aggrey said that the project “still has some way to go” as the remaining system suppliers must still “get through the development assurance and testing phase for flu”.
However, Candice Moore, programme head for digitising community pharmacy and medicines at NHS Digital, confirmed to The Pharmaceutical Journal that she understood that Sonar would be able to provide data transfer capabilities within the 2019/2020 flu season.
Moore added that the data transfer project is expected to save pharmacies a maximum of two hours of admin time per week.
