Written question asked by Lord Willis of Knaresborough (Liberal Democrat) on Monday, 24 July 2023, in the House of Lords. It was due for an answer on Monday, 7 August 2023. It was answered by Lord Markham (Conservative) on Tuesday, 1 August 2023 on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care.

Prescriptions: ICT

Question: To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to improve interoperability of (1) NHS information management systems, and (2) homecare medicines services information management systems.

Answer

An Information Standard Notice (ISN) which puts in place definitions that are to be used when a health professional sends or receives patient medication and allergy/intolerance information, by computer system, between care locations, has been published under section 250 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012.

The purpose is to ensure that medication and allergy information is transferred between systems and locations in a machine-readable format. This will be achieved by: transferring medication information using the newest version for the United Kingdom of Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resource, by use of either ‘Medication Codable Concept’ or ‘Medication Resource’ as is most appropriate to the use case; usage of dose syntax to transfer the amount of medication per dose as a simple coded quantity; and transferring allergy/intolerance information using Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms and dictionary of medicines and devices codes.

All clinical IT systems that will be used for prescribing homecare medicines will be required to be compliant with this ISN.

Secondary information

Type: Written question
Reference: HL9662
Session: 2022-23
Subjects: Delivery services ICT NHS Pharmacy
Link: View this Written question on www.parliament.uk

Prescriptions: ICT

Secondary information

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