NHS IT prescription glitch fixed

A "coding error" which meant out-of-date repeat prescription information appeared on some patient records has been spotted - and fixed.

NHS Connecting for Health (CfH) said it and supplier Accenture were alerted to "an issue" last Thursday at a GP practice that was using an NHS CfH GP IT system.

NHS CfH said in a statement: "The GP practice highlighted that out-of-date repeat prescription information had appeared on a current prescription."

The problem was found to affect 10 practices and 96 patients in the East of England, East Midlands and Northeast.

NHS CfH said that since the alert, steps have been taken to identify the extent of the problem and fix it. "Accenture has given assurances that the error has been corrected and that the GP practices have confirmed that no patients were affected," it said but refused to comment further on the issue.

Accenture told silicon.com in a statement: "We are aware of a prescription coding error that affected data migrated from specific legacy systems in 10 GP practices. We have been assured by the GP practices involved that no patients were negatively affected.

"However, we are taking this matter very seriously. The coding error - which was restricted to 96 patient records across 10 GP practices - has been fixed and we are working to ensure this error does not happen again."