Healthmail Clarification

Published: 18 March 2025

This update is intended to ensure all pharmacists understand the current expectations regarding Healthmail. 

Legislative overview  

The Medicinal Products (Prescription and Control of Supply)(Amendment) Regulations 2020 (S.I. No. 98 of 2020) define the National Electronic Prescription transfer system as “a system providing for the transfer of prescriptions, in permanent and unalterable form, by electronic means approved, on behalf of the Health Service Executive, by the head of the Primary Care Reimbursement Service (PCRS) and the Chief Information Officer”. The approved system is the HSE’s Healthmail System.  
 

1. Printing a Healthmail prescription

When a prescription is received using the Healthmail system, the pharmacy must print a copy of the prescription as transmitted and treat it as an original prescription for the purposes of record-keeping and reimbursement. An electronic version of the prescription must also be retained.  

Printing the Healthmail prescription also assists with dispensing preparation and checking. The final check of a prescription is crucial for the safe supply of medicinal products. Pharmacists must use a thorough checking mechanism to ensure the product is correct. A double-check system is essential. When verifying a prescription, especially if the pharmacist didn’t enter it into the patient medication record, the pharmacist should review the patient history to complete the therapeutic review. The pharmacist should compare the original prescription with the label and the product as a final check.  

Prescriptions transferred by the prescriber via Healthmail cannot be printed with the intention of providing a copy to the patient to attend another pharmacy. To be legally valid in this circumstance, a prescription must be in electronic form transferred via Healthmail. The prescription must be unalterable and traceable electronically back to the prescriber. If a copy is given to the patient, it must be marked as a ‘copy’ and is not a valid prescription.  

2. Forwarding Healthmail prescriptions 

To be legally valid, a prescription transferred via Healthmail must be in an unalterable electronic form and traceable electronically back to the prescriber. Prescriptions can only be forwarded to another pharmacy in very exceptional circumstances to facilitate continuity of patient care. This should not be used for controlled drugs. Examples of exceptional circumstances include:  

• Emergency or urgent need for medicines: 
  Situations where a patient needs their medicine urgently due to unforeseen circumstances or when a Healthmail prescription is used to support an emergency supply at another pharmacy.  
• Medicine availability:
  Scenarios where a pharmacy does not have the medication in stock, requiring the patient to visit another pharmacy, or when a patient wants to collect remaining repeats or balance of a prescription at a different pharmacy.  

In these exceptional circumstances, it is recommended that the hard copy record is endorsed appropriately to also record that the prescription was electronically transferred to another pharmacy. The pharmacy that forwarded the prescription should also make known supplies made against this prescription. The pharmacy receiving the prescription must ensure they have the required information on previous dispensing of the medication. In such a circumstance it must be recalled that the forwarding pharmacy is no longer in possession of the valid prescription and no further supplies can be made against that prescription by that pharmacy.  

Information on Healthmail, including FAQs and contact details can also be found on the Healthmail website.