Mid Cheshire switch to Ascribe e-prescribing

Pharmacists at the Mid Cheshire NHS Hospitals Trust have started using a web-based e-pharmacy system from Ascribe to fully automate the department and integrate with existing systems.

The system, called Web Pharmacy, connects information throughout the pharmacy department, between prescribing, pharmacy and administration processes, including stock management and finance.

Ascribe’s executive chairman, Stephen Critchlow, told E-Health Insider: “Web Pharmacy is giving Mid Cheshire our latest upgraded e-prescribing application based on an industrial strength platform and if they want to configure the system, it will be able to integrate with any information systems to provide one electronic patient record.

Critchlow said growing numbers of customers in healthcare want e-prescribing and medicines management. “Web Pharmacy is unique in that it can utilise a software interface to the hospital’s existing patient administration system to enable a more comprehensive Electronic Patient Record.”

Within Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Trust the system is so far being used by the pharmacy department at Leighton hospital. Using the system doctors and nurses can use integrated e-prescribing and medicines management in the hospital, which is then sent through to the pharmacy over a wireless network, and dispensed by a robotic system.

Alan Denby, chief pharmacist of Leighton hospital, said the system offered “significant improvements” to patients care.

The system is backed up by Quality Assured standards of support and service level agreements and Critchlow says it will help trusts meet the requirements of the Audit Commission’s ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’ report.

Critchlow said every hospital trust needed a system to ensure medicines management and reduce prescribing errors. “I would say that if every trust in the NHS took our system, it could save up to 700 lives a year and around £350m to the NHS.”

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