Click here to access ePACT.net
A service for pharmaceutical and prescribing advisors which allows real time on-line analysis of the previous sixty months prescribing data held on NHS Prescription Services' Prescribing Database.
Data is updated on a monthly basis (6 weeks after the dispensing month) and can be selected according to:
- Reporting period (i.e. month, quarter, year)
- Prescribing organisation (e.g. practice, PCT)
- BNF classification (chapter to presentation level)
- Controlled drugs tag.
The data available includes:
- Budgets and expenditure forecasts
- Costs and volumes of prescribing
- Prescribing totals by prescribers at all BNF levels
- Prescribing from none medical prescribers
- Working environment for nurses and supplementary prescribers (i.e. community or practice)
- Patient list sizes
- Low Income Scheme Index scores for practices
- Average Daily Quantities and Defined Daily Doses.
- Prescribing On Behalf Of PCT/Practice.
- Dispensing contractor name and address
- Data can be displayed in tabular and graphical formats
A 'tagging' facility for specific requests is available. The selection of data can be grouped by specific practices (e.g. rural, dispensing, locality) or specific BNF categories (e.g. practice formulary, specialist drugs). BNF tags can be shared between users (e.g. to assist in the monitoring of formularies within a PCT). A set of pre-defined BNF tags is provided, including ones based on the drug lists used in Prescribing Toolkit Reports.
Data can be filtered to analyse repeat dispensing, Local Pharmaceutical Services and Out of Hours Care Providers.
Query results can be saved to disk or exported to other PC applications. Users can defer the processing of large queries and view the results when convenient.
This service is available to:
- Hospital Trusts
- Mental Health Trusts
- Primary Care Trusts (PCTs)
- Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs)
- Agencies acting on behalf of groups of other organisations
National Users including:
- Department of Health (DH)
- National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE)
- Healthcare Commission
- National Prescribing Centre (NPC)
- NHS Information Centre
Information is available at a variety of levels:
- Prescriber, practice, & PCT level for PCT users
- PCT and SHA level for SHA and National users
- Specialty for Trust users
Practice prescribing can be analysed comparatively using a variety of patient denominators such as:
- Patient
- Prescribing Unit (PU)
- ASTRO PU - Age, Sex and Temporary Resident Originated Prescribing Unit
- STAR PU - Specific Therapeutic group Age-sex Related Prescribing Units
- Nurse Prescribing Formulary PU.
- SUB THERA STAR PU - BNF section STAR PU for use with Prescribing Toolkit drug lists.
ePACT.net now also provides National and PCT users the ability to monitor Private Controlled Drug Prescribing.
PCT users can monitor all prescribers in their PCT, with an option to switch between FP10 NHS prescribing and Private Controlled Drug Prescribing.
National users can also have a similar switch to allow them to view either FP10 NHS prescribing or Private Controlled Drug prescribing at PCT, SHA and National level. National users will need to apply for access to Private CD Prescribing, in the first instance, by contacting NHS Prescription Services, Information Services on 0191 203 5050.
NHS Prescription Services welcomes feedback to help further develop the service. Please contact Toolkit.feedback@ppa.nhs.uk.