The NHS has accredited a ground-breaking piece of Bristol-designed software in a move that could lead to electronic prescription dispensing penetrating the most rural parts of England.
Titan PMR has become the first viable software to be given full release authority to provide electronic prescription services (EPS) to GP surgeries that have an additional licence to dispense medicine on site. 
More than 1,000 of these doctors, who provide a vital service to almost 10m people in rural communities, can now offer their patients the same level of benefits and efficiencies that electronic prescriptions and Titan PMR have brought to pharmacies in urban areas around the UK.
Patients will enjoy lower waiting times and improved service thanks to the use of barcode scanning, artificial intelligence (AI) and digital workflow in the back office.
These features will also increase efficiency for dispensing doctors, who will reduce errors and improve organisation, increasing their capacity while enjoying the ability to integrate with other technologies.
After a full year of testing, including six months of compliance trials at a practice in Cumbria, the new accreditation for Titan also has potential to help the NHS fulfil its target of all prescriptions being issued electronically.
Written paper prescriptions from dispensing doctors currently account for around 7% of the total in England – around 6.5m each month.
Tariq Muhammad, tech entrepreneur and CEO of Bristol-based Invatech Health, which developed Titan PMR, said: “Until now dispensing doctor surgeries have basically been in the digital dark ages when it comes to dispensing medicines.
“What this accreditation means is that surgeries can deliver a more efficient and safer service to their patients, with doctors able to spend less time pushing paper and more time speaking to people and helping with their problems.”
He said this built patient loyalty and stopped the loss of dispensing income that made these rural surgeries sustainable.
“For the NHS, digital dispensing of medicines is like taking away the final blockage from a dam that’s ready to burst,” he added.
“Our system can dramatically help with better dispensing processes. We’re already administering one in 20 prescriptions in the country and that figure’s growing every day.
“Of course, for us as a business, with 1,000 dispensing doctors in England and with no viable alternatives to our system, it’s got great potential as a growth area.
“We just want to help bring the benefits of technology to every sector where medicines are dispensed. Everybody wins – patients, our communities, the NHS, pharmacists and now dispensing doctors too.”
In late 2019 Titan became the first new patient medication record (PMR) system to be accredited by the NHS in more than a decade. Two years later it helped create the UK’s first entirely paper-free pharmacy.
With its innovative barcode, cloud-based technology it is revolutionising the pharmacy industry and has been adopted en masse in community pharmacies and the disruptive online sector. It has also helped cut dispensing errors at some locations by up to 95%.
Since deployment it has grown rapidly and now processes more than 5% – or 4m a month – of all prescriptions in the UK, having won contracts with the fastest-growing online pharmacies.
The number is expected to double over the next year.
Pictured: Laura Wright, manager of Stoneleigh Surgery in Milnthorpe, Cumbria, where Titan was tested with, from left, Hooman Safaei, Rafal Kaczynski and Tariq Muhammad of Titan PMR
