For the first time ever EPS has processed one million prescriptions in a single day, in total 500 million electronic prescriptions have now been issued through the system and a third of all prescriptions are now sent to pharmacies this way.

The Summary Care Record has also achieved a major milestone, having been accessed five million times by doctors, pharmacists and other healthcare professionals. The SCR launched late last year and enables instant access to vital clinical information about a patient when they are being cared for in an emergency or when their GP practice is closed.

A SCR is now viewed every 9 seconds and 55 million people are benefiting from the improved information that healthcare professionals have to support their treatment and care, reports The Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC).

“When you consider that around one billion prescriptions are generated every year in England, it is a significant achievement to be able to say that over a third of all prescriptions are now processed electronically,” said programme head for EPS, Rachel Habergham.

“The volumes continue to increase on a daily basis as we support more GPs to go live. We are fast approaching a day when it will be very rare for a prescription not to be processed by EPS.”