Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many different templates exist for paper prescriptions issued to homecare providers.

The Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) used include reporting of patient safety incidents, which includes all cases of severe or moderate harm or death associated with a reportable incident. Definitions as well as detailed guidance on managing complaints and incidents within the homecare medicine service are contained in Appendix 19 of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society homecare standards, a copy of which is available in an online-only format.

Information is not held centrally on the number of different paper prescription templates currently in use. In 2022, the National Homecare Medicines Committee (NHMC) developed standard template prescriptions which are published in the Royal Pharmaceutical handbook for homecare services. Guidance from the NHMC advises that new services should use the template, and existing services should adopt the template on their next review.