Peer raises lack of EPS in Lords debate

NHS England’s failure to roll out the EPS for dispensing doctors has been raised in Parliament.

DDA adviser and Conservative peer Baroness McIntosh of Pickering said: “The question of who is to pay for that infrastructure remains a vexed issue.”

The debate followed the publication of the House of Lords Integration of Primary and Community Care Committee’s report ‘Patients at the centre: Integrating primary and community care’.

This concluded that there are four obstacles preventing the further integration of primary and secondary community care services:

Structure and organisation: ICS structures should be evaluated before further health service reform.
Contracts and funding: primary and community care contracts should be aligned to incentivise integrated working; co-location of GP and other community services
Data sharing: standardised data sharing systems
Workforce and training:

In her seven minutes at the podium, Baroness McIntosh also urged ministers to put GPs at the centre of patient care. She also called for rural-proofing, noting: “There is no one size fits all. What may well work in an urban area… may not work in very rural, sparsely populated areas.”

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