Welcome to the Community Pharmacy and ePharmacy Programme website.

This website is designed to be the central point for all information for the rollout of the Pharmacy contract.

Upgrade of N3 broadband network (22 July 2008)

The N3 broadband network is being upgraded to provide a faster broadband service. This new technology is based on “IPstream”, a high speed broadband product. N3 Scotland is pleased to announce that all NHSScotland community pharmacy broadband N3 connections will be migrated to this new broadband product between August and December 2008. A trial of 40 sites is almost complete. Trial sites have been contacted directly.

IPstream is a fast broadband service that has been proven to bring the NHS:

o Faster download and upload performance

o Faster maintenance activity, such as software downloads/patches

o Cost savings

o Stepping stone for future technology development

The migration from Datastream to IPstream is a remote process and does not require an engineering visit. However, it is imperative that the router is left powered-on at all times until the migration is complete. This allows N3SP to complete the migration out of hours. A short interruption of service may be experienced on some remote hosted applications during the migration; however, it is anticipated that any interruptions will be outwith the working day.

Please contact the PSD helpdesk on 0131 275 6600 as usual with any issues.

If you require any further information, please visit the N3 Scotland website http://www.n3.nhs.uk/n3scotland/, contact National Information Systems Group (NISG) nisgtelecom.nss@nhs.net or your NHS Board ePharmacy IM&T Facilitator.

Information Services Division

Scotland has some of the best health service data in the world. Few other countries have information which combines high quality data, consistency, national coverage and the ability to link data to allow patient based analysis and follow up. MAS Statistics and the Scottish Drug Tariff are available from the ISD Scotland website.