RTEC used 100 million times
The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) has announced that community pharmacy team members have performed over 100 million checks using the Real Time Exemption Checking (RTEC) system.
RTEC allows pharmacy teams to check digitally if their patients are eligible for free NHS prescriptions because they hold a specific exemption. Pharmacies already using RTEC report that it saves staff time and it reduces the use of paper (and pharmacy’s environmental impact), as contractors are not required to submit EPS tokens to the NHSBSA where these have been confirmed RTEC exempt.
Before RTEC can be activated for an individual pharmacy, the pharmacy contractor must confirm that they agree to the terms of the RTEC user agreement. Contractors can do this in the NHSBSA’s Manage Your Service (MYS) portal. Both NHSBSA and PSNC recommend that those contractors who have not already done so, complete the RTEC registration form in MYS, to avoid any delay to their system supplier activating RTEC as part of their rollout of the programme.
The NHSBSA has published a registration guide which explains how to log in to MYS and confirm acceptance of the RTEC user agreement. Contractors that are already using RTEC must also confirm acceptance of the user agreement, if they have not yet done so.
Multiple pharmacy groups can submit a bulk RTEC access declaration if they wish (see the NHSBSA registration guide for details about how to do this).
The majority of contractors are now using RTEC with even more going live in the coming weeks.
Further information on RTEC, its deployment, and RTEC FAQs
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“RTEC has been a real asset for my pharmacy team. It has prevented us and our patients from having to deal with large amounts of paperwork, whilst reducing our printer ink costs. I’d recommend all contractors make the swap to RTEC as soon as they and their supplier can.” – David Broome, community pharmacist, Leeds Read more: RTEC case study |
