Patient records updated with flu vaccine data by pharmacists from winter 2019

With the aim to improve communication in healthcare, Pharmacists will be able to share flu vaccination data with GP’s using NHS Digital data from winter of 2019.
Chair of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Digital Forum, Sibby Buckle, has said that this improvement will be rolled out in stages. Stage one is currently underway and consists of engaging with Pharmacy IT system suppliers and expects the exchange between GPs and Pharmacists, to be implemented by the end of March 2019.
Once stage one has been rolled out, stage two will enable pharmacists to send and receive data on medicine reviews, and hospital discharge summaries, but there is no set date for this as of yet.
Buckle commented, “This is very exciting and once we have all the systems talking the same language, the communication between GP’s, Hospitals and Pharmacies will be very much improved and we will all be using the common set of standards.”