Pharmacy research in digital innovations
Pharmacy Research Showcase highlights
Digital medicines decisions are often made without good evidence, and pharmacy researchers could help fill that gap. That was the challenge Rahul Singal, Chief Pharmacy and Medicines Information Officer at NHS England, set out at the Pharmacy Research Showcase.
Dr Singal, who leads NHS England’s Digital Medicines Programme, reflected that technology teams rely heavily on user research and service design. Designers may speak to 20 people in depth, then make a decision for the whole population. Academic research could provide a better balance, he suggested, but the two worlds work at different speeds. Technology teams want results in weeks, while researchers need time to think. Aligning the two is the challenge.
Six national priorities
The Digital Medicines programme has six broad aims:
- A single national prescribing and dispensing network built on the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS),
- A single patient medicines’ record accessible by both patients and clinicians, across all care settings
- Traceable medicines information made possible by closing gaps through interoperability, barcode technology and automation
- Digital tools that let patients order, track and manage their own medicines,
- Consistent data foundations,
- Better medicines management in adult social care.
Dr Singal called manual rekeying of medicines information “the biggest patient safety risk and productivity problem”. Future developments should enable seamless transfer of medicines information from one sector to another.
A blueprint for success
In the ideal future, there will be electronic prescribing everywhere, a single national formulary that is embedded into prescribing systems, a modern, secure Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) and a consolidated record for medicines information, he said.
Research questions
NHS England has asked Dr Yogini Jani and Professor Bryony Dean Franklin and their teams to set priorities for digital medication safety research. Ahead of that, Dr Singal shared the questions on his own mind.
On patient enablement, further research into improving adherence is needed. On the new medicines record, he asked what information clinicians need to see before it is trusted and users no longer feel the need to check elsewhere first.
On AI decision support, he raised the risk of “cognitive surrender”- where practitioners no longer think for themselves but unquestioningly accept AI-generated answers. AI might raise the standard of weaker decisions, but where does it become unsafe, and what training do clinicians need, he asked.
Pharmacy Research Showcase
The Pharmacy Research Showcase was a one-day event organised by the NIHR-Supported Incubator for Pharmacy Professionals which brought together policy-makers and researchers to share experiences and insights. It was held on 22nd October 2026 at the Royal College of Pharmacy headquarters in London.
Image: Dr Rahul Singal
