Across Wales, a meaningful shift is underway: not simply from paper to digital, but from fragmented medicines information to a nationally shared, connected record.
For years, medicines have been managed within organisational boundaries: paper charts in hospitals, separate systems in community settings, and manual handovers between teams. While clinicians have worked tirelessly to bridge those gaps, medicines information itself has often remained siloed.
Wales is now addressing that challenge head-on.
At the heart of the transformation is the Shared Medicines Record (SMR) for Wales, a single, reliable, up-to-date view of a patient’s medicines, accessible across care settings. It is one of the most ambitious elements of the national digital strategy led by Digital Health and Care Wales (DHCW), and it represents a fundamental redesign of how medicines information supports patient care.
Why the Shared Medicines Record matters
Medicines are central to almost every patient journey. Yet when medicines information is incomplete, delayed, or inconsistent, the risks increase, particularly during transitions of care.
The Shared Medicines Record aims to change that by ensuring:
- Clinicians can access accurate, structured medicines information wherever care is delivered.
- Prescribing decisions are supported by a full view of current and recent therapies.
- Medication changes are visible across organisational boundaries.
- Continuity of care is strengthened between hospitals, community services, and specialist providers, ensuring medicines information follows the patient rather than relying on repeated manual handovers.
This is not simply about visibility. It is about safety, consistency, and trust in the data that underpins clinical decision-making.
Delivering this vision, however, requires more than system connectivity. It requires high-quality, standardised medicines data captured at the point of care.
ePMA as the foundation for a national medicines ecosystem
Electronic prescribing and medicines administration (ePMA) is a cornerstone of Wales’s digital medicines strategy. It is not an endpoint in itself, but a structured data foundation that enables safe national sharing.
When prescribing and administration are managed digitally, medicines information becomes:
- Standardised rather than variable.
- Searchable rather than static.
- Shareable rather than locked within paper charts.
This structured data is what allows the Shared Medicines Record to function reliably across organisations.
As part of Wales’s Digital Medicines programme, a coordinated initiative aligning multiple national projects, ePMA systems like Better Meds are helping create the consistency and interoperability required for a single, coherent medicines ecosystem.
Rather than isolated digital deployments, each implementation becomes a building block in Wales’s wider medicines infrastructure.
Welsh organisations contributing to the Shared Medicines Record
Five Welsh health organisations have chosen Better Meds as their ePMA partner:
- Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board
- Aneurin Bevan University Health Board
- Powys Teaching Health Board
- Hywel Dda University Health Board
- Velindre University NHS Trust
Each adoption represents more than a local system upgrade. It is a contribution to the national ambition of creating a Shared Medicines Record for Wales.
These organisations are helping establish the standards, workflows, and data quality needed for medicines information to move safely across care settings.
Leading the change in North Wales
Serving more than 700,000 people across six counties, Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board’s recent rollout of Better Meds marks a significant milestone in the digital transformation of medicines in North Wales.
By implementing ePMA across multiple hospitals and community sites, the health board is strengthening region-wide medicines visibility while contributing structured data to Wales’s national architecture.
“We are one of the first in Wales to start this work, which will support Digital Health and Care Wales’ programme. These wider Welsh Government initiatives will support breaking through organisational boundaries and create a shared medicines record across Wales. We will be working closely with the national team and other health boards to share learnings and insights to achieve the wider national objectives,” said Mandy Jones, Deputy Executive Director of Nursing and Senior Responsible Officer at Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board.
With the system rollout in January, Wrexham Maelor Hospital has become the first acute site in Wales to have all inpatient wards live with the ePMA system, following an early-adopter implementation on the Heddfan Unit and a coordinated three-day transition involving more than 600 patients.
What makes this deployment particularly noteworthy is that Wrexham Maelor is also the first hospital in Wales to share discharge medicines information directly into the SMR. This connection ensures that key medicines data, including prescriptions at discharge, is now being consolidated into Wales’s emerging consolidated medicines view, supporting safer transitions of care and enabling clinicians across settings to see the most up-to-date medicines information.
Supporting safer prescribing across Wales
For Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, digital prescribing is a catalyst for safer, more transparent care. By adopting structured digital workflows, the organisation is improving real-time clinical oversight while contributing to a consistent national data model.
The Health Board will be the next to join this ecosystem in Wales, and they will be the first to achieve true two-way integration with the Shared Care Record, which means not just writing discharge medicines but also pulling in existing patient medicines at admission.
Powys Teaching Health Board, serving a rural and geographically dispersed population, is strengthening equitable access to safe prescribing. Moving away from paper reduces variability and enhances the quality of medicines information feeding into national systems.
Hywel Dda University Health Board, serving more than 385,000 people, is transitioning from paper to digital prescribing, bringing clarity and consistency to medicines workflows while aligning with Wales’s shared standards for medicines data.
At Velindre University NHS Trust, home to specialist cancer services and the Welsh Blood Service, complex medicines pathways demand clarity and precision. By implementing Better Meds beyond chemotherapy pathways, the Trust is enhancing real-time insight into medicines management while contributing high-quality data to Wales’s shared medicines future.
From local implementation to national impact
The adoption of ePMA across these organisations signals something larger than individual digital transformation projects.
It demonstrates Wales’s collective commitment to building a Shared Medicines Record that supports:
- Safer prescribing.
- Improved continuity of care.
- Reduced duplication and transcription risk.
- Better collaboration across organisations.
With DHCW’s strategic leadership, Wales is designing a connected medicines ecosystem built on shared standards and shared responsibility.
For Better Meds, partnership in Wales means supporting this broader national ambition: ensuring that medicines data is structured, interoperable, and ready to contribute to a truly shared record.
For Wales, it represents tangible progress toward a future where medicines information follows the patient, not the organisation, and where safer, smarter medicines management is enabled by design.
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