You must enter the PPA ID for GP Prescribers

This error appears to cause confusion as the Clinical Systems Support Team regularly receives calls about it.

This message highlights there an error and the different ways to resolve it. While present you cannot make any adjustments to a staff member’s account (e.g. gender, email, National ID incl. Pathology ID, Extension no, Sees patients or Safeguarding rights etc).

Why does this occur?

The staff member has

1. Rights to issue medication[1]
2. No prescribing ID [PPA ID], and
3. Their User Preferences set to calculate which name appears on scripts automatically. Currently if this staff member issues a script, it will have their own name on it (which is not appropriate for non-prescribers) and no PPA ID (which is not appropriate for prescribers).

How do I resolve this error?

This guide assumes your surgery is using the recommended Organisation Preferences for Prescription Authorising[2]: Automatically calculate the authoriser. All Suffolk surgeries were set this way at their original SystmOne Go Live; if your surgery has altered this we recommend raising a ticket so we can advise how to revert to this.

The information below is for fixing existing errors; the best way to prevent these occurring in future is to ensure each new staff member has their account configured, including User Preferences in-line with your local policy, as part of their initial induction and checking their account is working before being trained on SystmOne.

Non-prescribers (Admin/Reception/Practice Nurse)

Where these users have rights to issue medication, they should always have their User Preferences adjusted so the system does not attempt to put their name on prescriptions; the best option is to use the Usual GP.

While the user is signed into their account; go to User Preferences[3], Prescribing > Prescription Authorising. Change the setting for To decide the authoriser of prescriptions to Always authorise scripts with the Usual GP

As with all User Preference changes, the staff member must close down SystmOne to save this or the changes will revert when they next login. It is highly recommended you close SystmOne immediately after changing the setting to ensure this is not forgotten and the error will not clear until they have completed this.

Salaried or Partner GP

These users require a PPA ID per surgery they work at.

You should obtain the prescribers ID from NHS Prescribing Services[4]; clinicians receive a different PPA ID for each additional surgery they work at, you cannot use one they have at another surgery or prescriptions may be billed to the wrong surgeries.

Right click the staff member in Staff & Organisation Setup[5], go to the Local Settings tab and enter the PPA ID assigned to your surgery by Prescription Services.

Do not use the ‘Using PPA ID’ option for salaried/partner GPs.

Locum or Registrar GP

Locum & Registrar prescriptions generally have the name of their supervising GP. To set this you need to use the Using PPA ID field.

Right click the staff member in Staff & Organisation Setup⁵, go to the Local Settings tab and click Set next to Using PPA ID and select the preferred GP.

Do not use the ‘PPA ID’ option for locum/registrar GPs.

[4] https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/contact-us

[5] Setup > Users & Policy > Staff & Organisation Setup