CLEO Systems has successfully launched its CLEO SOLO EPS electronic prescription system after having completed a successful First of Type pilot with Midlands Partnership Foundation NHS Trust (MPFT) and achieving accreditation from NHS Digital. CLEO SOLO EPS can be used in a wide range of outpatient secondary care settings and enables patients’ prescriptions to be entered and sent electronically to a nominated community pharmacy of patient choice, encouraging sustainability, enabling reduction in prescribing errors and making life easier for clinicians and patients alike.
As an instant electronic prescribing solution, CLEO SOLO EPS enables quick, seamless, clinically safe prescribing. The solution - which was initially developed as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic - gives clinicians instant prescribing capability without the need for any systems integration. CLEO Systems collaborated with MPFT and NHS Digital to set up a pilot to implement CLEO SOLO EPS, and this pilot has delivered key efficiency benefits for a number of community services across the Trust. It is also supporting the drive towards digitisation across the NHS, enabling MPFT to address increased demand on its hospital community settings, to reduce the use of paper in prescribing and the infection risk that handling paper could introduce, to increase prescription security, and reduce travel and postage costs, whilst also saving time for clinicians and supporting transformation.
Before CLEO SOLO EPS, pilot service clinicians in MPFT were hand-writing prescriptions and patients were often having to travel to collect paper prescriptions or clinicians having to post or deliver them. Now patients’ prescriptions are sent electronically to the patient’s nominated pharmacy, enabling sustainability, increased patient safety, and freeing time for clinicians and patients.
MPFT has seen an improvement in efficiency and sustainability, as EPS has significantly reduced the need for paper prescriptions. In addition, carbon footprint is reduced as prior to using the solution clinicians were both posting prescriptions and delivering them. Importantly, Patient safety has also been enhanced due to the reduction in infection risk, security is enhanced as prescriptions can no longer be lost or stolen and are tracked by the prescription tracker.
The ease of use of CLEO SOLO EPS means that clinicians are able to use their new prescribing solution after a single, short training session. The prescriber uses their NHS smartcard to log in and can then search for a patient by NHS-recognised demographic search criteria or by entering either the EPS prescription ID or case reference from a previously created electronic prescription. This robust method of search functionality means that patient search errors are minimised, and the correct medications can be prescribed to the correct patients seamlessly. Uniquely, CLEO SOLO EPS allows for multiple cost centre codes to be used within a trust, making financial auditing and departmental cost tracking very straightforward.
Colin Jones, EPMA Programme Manager, MPFT says: ‘EPS has allowed our community clinicians to realise the benefits of digital prescribing, whilst also enhancing prescription security. Working with CLEO systems and NHS Digital, we have tailored EPS to suit different service requirements, ensuring benefits such as reduction in travel, postage and time are realised by a wide variety of services across the Trust. I’m really pleased that we have had a successful pilot of EPS, with the benefits for our staff, services users and Community Pharmacies, and am looking forward to deploying EPS further within MPFT.
Kerri Whyman, Prescribing and Projects Co-ordinator at MPFT says: ‘EPS provides excellent governance around FP10 prescription security, as there is no paper copy to store or misplace and the prescribing data is available immediately, giving increased assurance and reporting. The digital generation of an FP10 prescription saves a great deal of clinician and administrative time, with 9 hours of prescription ordering saved during the 45-day pilot alone. Also, Patient’s within EPS no longer have to collect their prescription from the Service, prior to presenting at a Community Pharmacy and they can choose a Pharmacy location which best suits their needs, often saving them time and money'.
MPFT consultant “It is not too dramatic to state that EPS has revolutionised my practice. I can now write and deliver prescriptions in five minutes compared to the time and effort it took to handwrite a prescription from scratch, arrange for it to be collected by the service user or a member of the team or hand deliver it to a pharmacy. A huge time saving with inbuilt safeguards to enable safe prescribing”.
Service user: “So happy with this new service, I don’t drive so I would have to catch a taxi to collect my prescription which was very costly so having it sent straight to the pharmacy is going to save me money”.
Community pharmacy: “No issues, everything has worked well and the patients have been happy with the service”.
David Brown, Managing Director, CLEO Systems said: ‘As the first provider to launch a product of this type into this sector, we are so pleased to see the clinical and patient benefits associated with the successful launch and pilot of CLEO SOLO EPS. Working collaboratively with the trust and NHS Digital has been an excellent experience and we are proud that our software is so flexible and easy to use.’