Articles which will keep customers informed of any updates and changes to the system that they need to be aware of.
How you contact us has changed
On Wednesday 9 February 2022 External Reporting Services within the Data and Insight directorate (formerly Information Services) have implemented a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.
This will enable us to get a full picture of how you interact with us, help us continue to provide good customer service and make sure our Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are being met.
The new system will bring several improvements and benefits to you. In particular it will help us to:
- make it easier for you to know which service you are contacting, leading to improved response times
- identify training requirements for you
- see where system improvements can be made
- make sure we get a full picture of how you interact with us
Full details of how to contact us are available on our Help and Support page.
ePACT2 Newsletters
Newsletters which are sent out regularly to registered ePACT2 users will be archived in this section.
BNF code changes - January 2023
The annual version changes relating to the BNF Structure have been implemented with January 2023 dispensing data.
The latest file shows the BNF presentation code as of December 2022 data against the BNF presentation code as of January 2023 data. Also included is the BNF presentation name and the full BNF structure that aligns with these changes.
As ePACT2 always uses the latest BNF code, the BNF code as of January 2023 onwards will also apply to all historical data.
For any static reports, such as monthly Prescription Cost Analysis (PCA) data and English Prescribing Data (EPD), the BNF presentation code prior to January 2023 data will remain unchanged.
NHS Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) reorganisation as of 1 April 2021
The following will be implemented as part of NHS CCG structure changes as of 1 April 2021. The changes will apply to April 2021 dispensing data which will be released mid-June and will be implemented across all our reporting systems where applicable (Information Services Portal (ISP), Open Data Portal (OPD) and ePACT2):
- 135 CCGs reduced to 106 with the merger of 38 CCGs into 9
- Existing 7 regions with updated mapping
- Existing 42 STPs with updated mapping
- Existing 15 AHSNs with updated mapping
- Changes to PCNs with updated CCG and practice mapping
- New organisations assigned a new ODS code - alpha-numeric-alpha (ANANA) format
- Similar 10 refreshed to reflect 106 CCGs
Read more about the changes and how it affects our systems and reports (Word: 64KB).
BNF code changes - January 2021
The annual BNF version changes are due to be implemented with January 2021 dispensing data, planned publication of this data is around mid-March 2021.
The latest published mapping file shows the BNF presentation code as of December 2020 data against the BNF presentation code as of January 2021 data, also included is the BNF presentation name.
As ePACT2 always uses the latest BNF code, the BNF code as of January 2021 onwards will also apply to all historical data.
For any static reports, example monthly PCA data, English Prescribing Data (EDP) the BNF presentation code prior to January 2021 data will remain unchanged.
Amended 2020 to 2021 forecast out-turn profile now available
You can find the 2020 to 2021 amended forecast out-turn profile on the financial forecasting page.
The amended forecast out-turn 2020 to 2021 will be made available with reports released in February 2021 relating to December 2020 prescribing. The profile takes into account the CAT M changes in October 2020 and January 2021.
An amended forecast template has also been made available on the financial forecasting webpage.
ePACT2 Sandbox - New ideas, quicker feedback
We have created an area within ePACT2 called the ‘Sandbox’ where we will be encouraging users to test, check and feedback on beta versions of new reports, dashboards and features that are under development.
We want to engage with you and for you to be involved earlier in the process when we are working on ideas and this Sandbox area lets us get new features and releases to you quickly.
We will listen to and collate your feedback and then decide if the idea progresses into the main ePACT2 system or if it should be re-designed or even scrapped.
The Sandbox area can be found on the landing page as you enter ePACT2.
One Drug Database mapping documents
The following documents only contain presentations prescribed from January 2014 – November 2019. Presentations not prescribed within this time will not be included.
BNF presentation code changes (Excel: 100KB)BNF presentation name changes (Excel: 1.58MB)Special container quantity changes (Excel: 84KB)
Diabetes Dashboard update
The following metrics have changed:
- Metric 1: number of unique patients prescribed Blood Glucose Testing Strips with any non-insulin blood glucose lowering therapies and not prescribed insulin.
- Metric 2: number of unique patients prescribed Blood Glucose Testing Strips with Metformin but no insulin.
- Metric 3: number of unique patients prescribed Blood Glucose Testing Strips with any non-insulin blood glucose-lowering therapy and insulin.
Previously, the metrics included patients who were not prescribed blood glucose testing strips, as well as those who were.
This has been changed to include only patients who were prescribed testing strips, and match the rest of the prescribing combination for the metrics:
- Metric 1: number of unique patients prescribed Blood Glucose Testing Strips and any non-insulin blood glucose-lowering therapies and not prescribed insulin.
- Metric 2: number of unique patients prescribed Blood Glucose Testing Strips and Metformin but no insulin.
- Metric 3: number of unique patients prescribed Blood Glucose Testing Strips and any non-insulin blood glucose-lowering therapy AND insulin.
This will have an impact on figures, removing approximately 85% of patients from metrics 1 and 2, and 25% of patients from metric 3 nationally.
The change has been made because the focus of the metrics is on the use of testing strips. It's important to make sure that only patients prescribed the testing strips are included.
This change will affect all three graphics for these metrics, for all organisation levels.
One Drug Database
For many years we had 2 sources of drug data. These were Master Data Replacement (MDR) and Common Drug Reference (CDR).
The MDR database is used for reporting purposes whilst the CDR database is used for the transactional processing of prescription items.
There are inconsistencies in how the data is stored in each of the databases which can cause confusion, especially as different naming conventions are used in both systems.
We're running a project to improve this situation by migrating all drug usage to CDR and decommissioning the MDR Drug system completely.
Moving to one source of drug information will save the effort of maintaining 2 sets of drug records and improve quality by making sure all of our applications, and external customers of drug data, are using a single and consistent source of drug data.
Delivering these benefits directly contributes to our strategic goals, which are to generate efficiency across health and social care system, make things easy for our customers through the delivery of brilliant basics, and to collaborate to maximise the return on data to improve health outcomes for patients.
The project is underway and will hopefully be completed by the end of this calendar year, where all drug data which is currently held only in MDR will be migrated to CDR which will then be the one single data source.
We'll continue to keep you updated with our progress on this.