WELCOME TO FEBRUARY EDITION OF THE DIGITAL MEDICINES TRANSFORMATION PORTFOLIO NEWSLETTER

February 2024

Welcome to our February newsletter. It’s been another busy month for the Digital Medicines Transformation Portfolio, with all four programmes and projects continuing to deliver at pace. In this edition you can find out more about the Community of Knowledge and Action (CoKA) set up to support the delivery of electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration (ePMA) in Wales and meet the Portfolio’s new Service Management Lead, Bola Bankole. 

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This month we shine a spotlight on the Community of Knowledge and Action (CoKA) supporting the delivery of Secondary Care electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration (ePMA) in Wales.  



Following the first CoKA meeting of 2024 in January, where colleagues from Powys Teaching Health Board shared their experiences of preparing communications and engagement about ePMA, we sat down with ePMA Technical Interoperability Principal Project Manager Martin Gallanders to find out more about the community and its achievements. 

What is the Community of Knowledge and Action? 

The Community of Knowledge and Action, or CoKA, group was established last summer as part of our engagement and collaboration project to share learning to support the successful deployment of ePMA. The monthly sessions are open to all health care colleagues who will be using ePMA. We invite individuals and groups to share knowledge and best practice, inviting one or two speakers each month to spotlight a particular topic to share their learning.   

Why was it established? 

It was established to encourage health boards to work collaboratively and to share best practice and lessons learnt. It is proving to be a helpful route to share learning, both clinical and technical. The sessions are informal, generating discussion, sharing of information and lots of varied engagement. Sessions are recorded and shared for those unable to attend. 

How will it support the delivery of ePMA in Wales? 

So far we have covered information, devices, benefits realisation, local engagement and system configuration – all of which support learning and sharing for everyone involved in implementing ePMA across Wales. Our plans for CoKA in 2024 include inviting speakers from England who can share their first-hand experience and knowledge of ePMA rollouts, identifying successes, things they would do differently and challenges faced. The aim is to learn from others through discussions and sharing of knowledge, so that we don’t replicate the same lessons learnt. The opportunity to ask questions of those who have been through the process already is proving very beneficial and is creating a network of contacts that can be drawn upon. 



How can colleagues get involved? 

We encourage everyone involved with the deployment of ePMA in Wales to attend the sessions. If you have learning to share or have specific topics that you would like covered then please do let us know. For further information, or if you would like to be added to the attendance list, please contact Nina Rees at [email protected] or the programme inbox at [email protected]. 

When is the next CoKA session? 

The next CoKA session will be held on Thursday, March 21 from 1-2pm and will cover: 

Benefits Realisation – David Powell, DHCW 

The Digital Capability Framework – Ellen Edwards, HEIW 



We are now also working on a calendar of CoKA events for the year ahead and will share this as soon as it’s finalised.  

Photo: ePMA Technical Interoperability Principal Project Manager Martin Gallanders

EPS success in Rhyl - next up, Penmaenmawr and Llanfairfechan!

Since the electronic prescription service (EPS) went live at Lakeside Medical Centre and Wellington Road Pharmacy in Rhyl in November 2023, more than 2,500 prescription items have been dispensed and claimed successfully. The service continues to work well and final assurance is expected in mid-March, which will confirm that the two systems involved in this first test site (EMIS Web and Invatech Titan) are safe to be rolled out across Wales. 

The great progress continues, with Boots due to begin live testing their EPS functionality in early March between Plas Menai Surgery in Penmaenmawr and the nearby Boots pharmacy in Llanfairfechan. 

Further developments in electronic Prescribing and Medicines

Administration (ePMA) procurement

The Secondary Care electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration (ePMA) programme is moving forward at pace, with several developments this month.  

Cardiff and Vale and Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Boards (UHBs) are expected to announce their preferred supplier soon. Aneurin Bevan, Swansea Bay, Betsi Cadwaladr and Hywel Dda UHBs have concluded their evaluation activities and will be closely followed by Powys Teaching Health Board and Velindre NHS Trust. 

All health boards and trusts are expected to choose their preferred supplier before the end of the financial year, setting up 2024/25 to be a year of procurement and deployment across Wales. 

Photo: ePMA Senior Responsible Owner Lesley Jones meets colleagues at Ystradgynlais Community Hospital, Powys

Positive feedback following Shared Medicines Record interface testing

Being able to flow medicines data from the Shared Medicines Record into the ePMA on admission is a requirement for the programme. As a result, we are delighted that testing of the Application Programming Interface (API) for this with one of our ePMA suppliers this month has been very successful and that their feedback on the documentation was positive. We look forward to other systems going through testing in the near future and will bring you further updates as soon as we can. 



The SMR project team has also held a number of engagement sessions with health board and trust colleagues to promote awareness and explain the benefits of the SMR.

Two NHS Wales App medicines features on track

Good progress has been made on two core medicines features in the NHS Wales App.  



Software development has been completed for the push notification feature which will allow a pharmacy to send a message to patients that their prescription has been dispensed and is ready.  

Community pharmacy system supplier Invatech has completed testing, while Pharmacy X is currently in a testing phase. The first pharmacy system is expected to go live in March. The development of the feature to let patients nominate, or choose, the pharmacy they would like their prescriptions to be dispensed by has also begun. This feature is expected to go live in the App in June. 

Have you read our Annual Review?

Our Annual Review was published at the start of the year, marking all the fantastic achievements in the first 18 months of DMTP in delivering one of the biggest-ever changes to medicines prescribing, dispensing and administration in Wales.  

These include making the first electronic transfer of a prescription in Wales last November and supporting every health board in Wales and Velindre University NHS Trust to publish Invitations to Tender (ITTs) for an  ePMA system for all 82 of our hospitals. We also made significant developments in the creation of a Shared Medicines Record and in the NHS Wales App. 

Medicines are a vitally important part of healthcare, but the way in which they are managed – largely using paper processes – has not changed significantly since the birth of the NHS in 1948. The creation of DMTP by Welsh Government in 2022 was a pivotal moment and gave us a mandate to improve the safety and efficiency of medicines management for patients and healthcare professionals in Wales.  

As you can see from the annual report, we are now well underway on this journey but there remains lots more to do before we have a fully deployed and joined-up medicines data ecosystem and achieve all of the targets we have been set. 

You can read the Annual Review here and you can also find out more by watching our short video. 

Photo: DMTP Director Rhian Hamer and staff at Wellington Road Pharmacy, Rhyl, which features in our

Annual Review

Every month, we find out more about the people in the DMTP team. This month, we welcome Service Management Lead Bola Bankole and hear from Senior Communications Officer Rebecca Lees, who recently completed the 70k Brecon to Cardiff Ultra Marathon  

Bola Bankole,

Service Management Lead

Joined DMTP: December 2023

I joined DMTP from the Welsh Community Care Information System (WCCIS), where I worked for a year as the Service Management Lead. This involved monitoring performance and managing continuous IT service improvement plans. Before joining Digital Health and Care Wales, I worked with Helium Health in the Middle East and Africa as the Head of Service Management.  

I am glad to be part of a team supporting with unique strategies to deliver products and services to healthcare service providers and the people of Wales.  



Outside of work I enjoy listening to music, walking, reading and watching sports events. I thoroughly enjoyed the recent Africa Cup of Nations tournament, known as AFCON, where my home country, Nigeria, played Cote D'Ivoire in the finals.  

Rebecca steps up to ultra marathon challenge

Congratulations to Senior Communications Officer Rebecca Lees, who took on her biggest running challenge to date to complete the 70k Brecon to Cardiff Ultra Marathon this month. 

In rain and strong winds, Rebecca joined more than 300 runners lining up for Run Walk Crawl’s 10th anniversary ultra between Brecon and Coleg Nantgarw, near Taffs Well.  

Rebecca, who joined DMTP’s communications team last June, completed the run in 11.06 hours. A happy ‘back-of-the-pack’ runner, she loves the freedom and headspace of trail running, which has helped her manage bereavement and anxiety. 

Rebecca said: “The biggest challenge mentally is getting to the starting line and believing I deserve a place there. Pace doesn’t matter; it’s just about taking time away from busy work and family life and enjoying the beautiful Wales landscape.” 



During the run Rebecca was cheered on by her partner Laurence, who cycled along part of the Taff Trail from Merthyr to surprise her, and friends from Hengoed Harriers, an inclusive trail running club whose motto is ‘finish lines, not finish times.’ 

It’s been a busy start to the year for Portfolio leaders, who have attended a number of engagement events with stakeholders. In January, DMTP Senior Responsible Owner (SRO) Hamish Laing and EPS SRO Jenny Pugh-Jones presented an update to NHS Wales Digital Directors and Jenny also attended Cardiff and Vale UHB’s Western Vale GP Cluster meeting. Earlier this month Jenny attended the Royal College of GPs in Wales’ Patient Forum with DMTP Director Rhian Hamer and in March she will be at the Welsh Pharmacy Committee. 

Don't miss the next e-prescribing masterclass

Interested in knowing more about e-prescribing? Don’t miss the chance to sign up for the ePrescribing Masterclass series. 

The next event will take place on Wednesday, March 6 from 1-2pm and you can register for the masterclass here.  

The ePrescribing masterclass series consists of a monthly webinar where NHS organisations can share their learning and experiences on digital transformation and enable health boards and trusts to follow in their footsteps as quickly and effectively as possible. 

The sessions are designed to accelerate digital transformation, reduce unwarranted variation and deliver quality improvements in patient safety, clinical outcomes and service user experience.  

The events will be of interest to pharmacy teams, implementation teams, IT teams, clinical and medical information officers and suppliers. Each masterclass lasts approximately an hour and details about the speaker will be confirmed closer to the time. 

Future ePrescribing Masterclasses are outlined below and you can register for each by clicking on the relevant link: 

Wednesday 17 April 2024 

Wednesday 15 May 2024 

Wednesday 5 June 2024 

DMTP was established by Welsh Government to co-ordinate, support and ensure strategic alignment of four different but inter-related areas of work which together will deliver the overall benefits: 

• The delivery of an Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) in primary care
• The implementation of an electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration (ePMA) on hospital wards
• The development of a Shared Medicines Record
• Medicines functionality and patient access within the NHS Wales App

If you would like to know more about our work or have a suggestion about how we can engage with you, we’d love to hear from you!  



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