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Ian Taylor, managing director of Rx Systems, explained how the latest IT developments could improve processes, increase patient loyalty and support pharmacy to deliver enhanced 'patient-centric' services.

Pharmacy should embrace interoperability and integrated care, because this would put the patient at the centre of care and reduce duplication and silo working. Rx Systems' parent company Emis led the way in interoperability by operating in primary and secondary care, GP surgeries, pharmacies, mental health and community healthcare.

€By 2020, 40 per cent of healthcare will be online,€ said Mr Taylor. €Information sharing is the key to better care, better outcomes and reduced costs.

Community pharmacy had a tremendous opportunity in certain parts of the NHS, but had danced too much to the tune of government organisations. €We must deliver solutions that are fit for the purpose of community pharmacy rather than just meeting the government agenda.€ Pharmacists wanted a range of services from their IT supplier, including 24-hour operability, fast download speeds, back office support when things went wrong, website design, IT linked with service €commissioners, and regional solutions.

In the past, IT had always been centred on prescriptions, but now the focus was shifting towards patients. Mr Taylor highlighted identifying and tracking patients at OTC level as a key challenge, but one that presented tremendous opportunities.

Despite the recent significant GP uptake of EPS release 2, the system's stability presented ongoing challenges. The fact that nothing had ever been defined in any country about EPS made it particularly difficult to work with.

Pharmacy needed an appropriate IT platform if it was to deliver a national minor ailments service. But to deliver this, central recognition of a new pharmacy role, a public awareness programme, and commissioner engagement with pharmacy were all necessary.