Author: Tracey Robertson
21 August 2026Last night I was listening to The PJ Pod and the topic of discussion was EPS nomination theft. It’s a subject I sadly know very well.
The podcast is brilliant – I highly recommend it – and it’s so important that journalists like Joanna Robertson and the team at The Pharmaceutical Journal keep EPS nomination theft in the industry headlines. But the fact that it needs to be kept there is disappointing.
We helped Joanna with her investigation into EPS nomination theft for a story that was published last month. But our own story started years before when we reported our concerns to the NHS back in 2024.
And yet it’s not only still a problem. It seems to be bigger than ever.
Over the past year we've seen increasing concern from contractors about unusually large volumes of nominations moving in very short periods of time. Much of this appears to be driven by automated technology capable of processing nomination changes at scale.
Community pharmacies work incredibly hard to build trusted relationships with their patients. Those relationships should never be undermined by technology that allows nominations to be switched without a patient's genuine knowledge or consent.
EPS nomination theft is a topic that naturally inspires a lot of strong feeling. Something which was magnified at our roundtable event earlier in the year.
What concerns me most – and everyone else who believes in playing by the rules - is that parts of our sector have started to accept bulk, automated nomination theft as though it's simply another competitive tactic. It isn't.
Technology suppliers have a responsibility to design systems that protect patients, not exploit loopholes for commercial gain.
We've heard countless examples from pharmacies across the country of the impact of nomination theft.
Vulnerable patients arriving for medicines that are no longer there. Patients left without essential treatment because their prescription has unexpectedly been diverted elsewhere. Independent pharmacies losing large numbers of patients in a matter of days despite having built relationships with those communities over many years.
The risk isn't simply commercial. It's clinical.
It is only a matter of time before a patient comes to serious harm because a prescription has ended up somewhere they neither expected nor intended.
A further worrying consequence is that IT suppliers who have chosen to do the right thing are beginning to feel commercial pressure to introduce similar functionality simply to remain competitive. That creates a race to the bottom that benefits nobody, least of all patients.
At Cegedim Rx, we've taken a very clear position. We believe technology should strengthen trust between patients and pharmacies, not undermine it.
There is enough opportunity across community pharmacy without resorting to tactics that compromise patient confidence. Short-term commercial gain is never worth the long-term damage to the reputation of our profession.
So, while I may feel disappointed that EPS theft is still being talked about, I won’t stop unless it does.
