Wrexham Maelor Hospital rolls out ePMA system

Wrexham Maelor Hospital, part of Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board (BCU), has implemented an electronic prescribing and medicines administration (ePMA) system from supplier Better.

An early adopter implementation took place in the Heddfan Psychiatric Unit of the hospital in December 2025 before a wider rollout across all inpatient wards.

Clinical teams worked together to manually transcribe more than 600 inpatients onto the Better Meds system over a three-day period, before supporting ward teams to transition to electronic prescribing as part of routine patient care.

Lois Lloyd, chief pharmacist at BCU, said: “The successful rollout of ePMA at Wrexham Maelor Hospital is a significant milestone in improving medicines safety and optimising how we use digital technology to support patient care.

“This has been a complex piece of work, and I want to recognise the commitment and collaboration of pharmacy, clinical and digital teams in making this happen.

“ePMA provides a stronger, safer platform for prescribing and administration, and it represents an important step forward in modernising medicines management for our patients.”

Support arrangements were put in place throughout the implementation weekend, including a dedicated call centre, alongside on-the-ground clinical and digital support teams across the hospital, providing wrap-around assistance to staff as they adapted to the new system.

Following the rollout, the programme now moves into its next phase, with East community sites scheduled to commence ePMA implementation from 20 January 2026.

Dr Clara Day, executive medical director at BCU, said: “Delivering the implantation of this ePMA safely across all inpatient wards in a live acute environment required coordinated effort, rapid decision-making and sustained commitment from teams across the organisation, both those brought onto site and those who provide patient care.

“The successful transition from paper to digital prescribing, within such a compressed timeframe, represents a significant operational and clinical achievement.

“We will continue to roll out the system to Central and West over the next couple of months. I thank everyone for their hard work and patience to ensure we have been able to introduce this step forward in patient safety.”

BCU, the largest health board in Wales, announced a partnership with Better to deliver the ePMA system in August 2024.

The ambition is for the system to be deployed across more than 40 hospital and community sites by March 2026 to improve the way patients, clinicians and pharmacy teams prescribe and manage medicines for more than 700,000 people across six counties in North Wales.

Under the plans, an ePMA system is being rolled out to every ward in every hospital in Wales through the NHS Wales’ Digital Medicines Programme, led by Digital Health and Care Wales and funded by the Welsh government.