NHS England has added a new prescription tracking feature to the NHS App.
It said that nearly 1,500 high street chemists, including every branch of Boots in England, are now offering the service that enables patients to find updates on the progress of their prescriptions.
The app can show them if their medicines are ready to collect or, if being delivered, dispatched by the pharmacy.
Another 5,000 pharmacies, amounting to 60% of those in England, are expected to take up the service over the next 12 months.
More control
Dr Vin Diwakar, clinical transformation director at NHS England, said: “We know that people want more control over how they manage their healthcare and the new prescription tracking feature in the NHS App offers exactly that.
“You will now get a near real time update in the app that lets you know when your medicine is ready so you can avoid unnecessary trips or leaving it until the last minute to collect.
“The new Amazon-style feature will also help to tackle the administrative burden on pharmacists, so that they can spend more of their time providing health services and advice to patients rather than updates on the status of their prescriptions.”
Anne Higgins, pharmacy director at Boots, said: “For the first time, when a patient orders their prescription via the NHS App and they’ve nominated a Boots pharmacy to dispense it, they can view its journey at every key step of the process.
“This will remove the need for patients to call our pharmacy team for updates on their prescription so they can spend more time with patients and deliver vital services like NHS Pharmacy First.”
Barcode feature
The new prescription tracker builds on another feature of the NHS App that allows people without a nominated pharmacy to use a barcode to collect their prescription. NHS England said there is an average of 2.1 million views of digital prescription barcodes each month.
NHS England said there are plans to add more features to the app.
