Community Pharmacy Scotland has said there is “no quick fix” and “no current timetable” for removing a glitch with the Vision GP prescribing system which it warned has the potential to cause confusion for pharmacies.

CPS last week said it had received reports that “a particular version” of the system being used by some sites in the country, which is provided by Cegedim, did not give prescribers the option of specifying a start date for instalment prescriptions and instead made it mandatory while defaulting to that day’s date if it was not altered.

CPS said that could cause “some confusion locally” because “for the majority of instalment prescriptions, the prescriber will be unaware of and likely not particularly invested in the actual start date for dispensing, which may be some time in the future (e.g. for dosette packs).”

CPS told Independent Community Pharmacist that NHS National Services Scotland (NSS) was working closely with Cegedim to resolve the issue.

However, CPS said: “There is no current timescale as to when a fix will be in place for this function as there is no quick fix for this.” NSS director of strategy, performance and service transformation Lee Neary, told ICP it "is aware of the issue and has contacted Cegedim to look at solutions." ICP has contacted Cegedim for a response.

CPS also said there was “no straightforward interim solution that can be applied nationally as only the prescriber can make clear their intentions.”

It added: “Our suggestion (to pharmacies) should you come across this would be to engage with the GP or pharmacotherapy teams locally to confirm whether the ‘default’ dates can be ignored where appropriate.”