Pharmacies could contribute to a national system to see what medicines are safe and how they behave in the real world.

“There’s an important role pharmacists could play in medicine feedback,” Ryan Callaghan, director of the Peter Sowerby Foundation Foundation Forum told The Pharmacist.

“E-prescribing is the most obvious place to start as it has the most momentum behind it, but I think pharmacists should not only have access to but should contribute back to a patient integrated record,” he said.

There was a no one size fits all approach to software in the NHS, said director of strategic systems and technology at NHS England, Beverley Bryant, speaking at the Westminster health forum yesterday, 11 February 2015.

The choice was up to clinicians and local managers to decide what software to run, said Byrant.

SPINE,which has been dubbed the “electronic backbone of the NHS” has been replatformed and “breathed” new life into the summary care records (SCR), according to Byrant.

“We have 5m SCRs, that’s 90% of the population that have consented to have their information on the system and clinicians in A&E are starting to use it. It becomes self fulfilling,” she said.

Trials are being held to extend Summary Care Records to pharmacists.