The Role of Technology in Shaping the Professional Future of Community Pharmacists: The Case of the Electronic Prescription Service in the English National Health Service

Information and communication technology (ICT) has been extensively proposed in the last decade as a means to reform, modernize, and reshape national health systems around the globe. In so doing, it inevitably changes work practices, and may have longer term consequences for health care professions. This paper considers how ICT may shape the professional future of community pharmacists by drawing on ongoing research into a national project in England to establish the electronic transmission of prescriptions between doctors and pharmacies. The project illustrates how technology opens up various possibilities that may influence pharmacists’ professional standing in the future by shaping their work practices, jurisdictions, roles, values, power, and boundaries. Our aim is not to evaluate these subtle and contradictory changes but to develop an appropriate analytical framework, and to contribute to the debate concerning the role of technology in shaping professional futures.