SCRIPT eLearning Programme - University of Birmingham

SCRIPT is a national eLearning programme designed to promote safe and effective prescribing and medicines management. The web-based modules are aimed at healthcare professionals and undergraduate healthcare students. SCRIPT was commissioned by Health Education England (HEE) (now NHS England) and developed by the University of Birmingham in partnership with OCB Media Ltd. The programme is freely available to all NHS staff and, since August 2021, to all Higher Education Institutions in the UK to support undergraduate teaching.

Access the SCRIPT Programme

An estimated 237 million medication prescription errors occur in England each year, with avoidable errors costing £1.6 billion and contributing to 22,303 deaths per annum. SCRIPT was created in 2010 to improve prescribing competency among Foundation trainee doctors, following the publication of the EQUIP study. The programme’s success led to the development of additional SCRIPT portfolios for dentists, paediatric specialist trainees, nurses, general practitioners, Foundation pharmacists, and ambulance service staff.

The SCRIPT programme now comprises more than 140 modules. Each portfolio includes modules covering a wide range of therapeutic topics. Modules are authored, edited and peer reviewed by a team of expert healthcare professionals, and are regularly reviewed and updated.

SCRIPT eLearning is established as a best practice resource in the UK and recommended in professional guidelines and training standards. By 2025, the programme celebrated 15 years of providing education, with over 1.2 million modules completed across all SCRIPT portfolios.

SCRIPT eLearning: Our 15-year journey

Research

SCRIPT eLearning standardises the training and education of undergraduate healthcare students and healthcare professionals across the NHS, to reduce the risk of medication errors and optimise the use of medicines to benefit patient care.

As a research group, we are investigating the impact of SCRIPT according to the Kirkpatrick hierarchy of evaluating training programmes:

Reaction: How students and practitioners react to the eLearning and what observations we can make from their engagement and learning behaviour within the online environment
Learning: The impact of the eLearning on knowledge acquisition, based on pre-post test scores
Behaviour: The impact of the eLearning on prescribing and therapeutic decision-making

Recent publications

Monshi MM, Jalal Z, Aston J, Pontefract SK, Cox A. (2026). Educational Interventions Affecting Medication Error Reporting by Healthcare Professionals in Secondary and Tertiary Care: A Systematic Review and Narrative Synthesis. Drug Safety, https://doi.org/10.1007/s40264-026-01668-4
Alhossaini RM, Cox AR, Pontefract SK (2026). Feasibility of Script Concordance Test Development: A Qualitative Study of Medical Educators’ Experiences. Int. Med. Educ, 5:8. https://doi.org/10.3390/ime5010008
Owen, S, Menzies J, Pontefract SK (2022). ‘Educational Interventions to Reduce Nurse Medication Interruptions: A Scoping Review’. Nurse Education Today, 121:105665. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2022.105665
Ferner, R, Mason, J, Vallance, H, Choudhary, T, Marriott, J, Coleman, J & Pontefract, S (2021). Coping with COVID: preparing prescribers during the pandemic. British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 88(5):2437-2440. http://doi.org/10.1111/bcp.15153
Mason J , Vallance H , Pontefract S , Coleman J (2019). Safe prescribing in general dental practice – challenges and solutions. Dental Update, 2;46(9):828-835.
Brooks HL, Pontefract SK, Vallance HK, Hirsch C, Hughes E, Ferner RE, Marriott JF, Coleman JJ (2016). Perceptions and Impact of Mandatory eLearning for Foundation Trainee Doctors: A Qualitative Evaluation. PLoS ONE, 11 (12): e0168558. http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0168558
Brooks H, Pontefract SK, Hodson J, Blackwell N, Hughes E, Marriott JF, Coleman JJ (2016). An evaluation of UK foundation trainee doctors’ learning behaviours in a technology-enhanced learning environment. BMC Medical Education, 16(1):133. http://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-016-0651-z

SCRIPT and independent research

Bakkum MJ, Tichelaar J, Papaioannidou P et al (2020). Education Working Group of the European Association for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (EACPT) and its affiliated Network of Teachers in Pharmacotherapy (NOTIP). Harmonizing and improving European education in prescribing: An overview of digital educational resources used in clinical pharmacology and therapeutics. Br J Clin Pharmacol. 2021;87:1001–1011. https://doi.org/10.1111/bcp.14453
Bakkum MJ, Tichelaar J, Wellink A, Richir MC, van Agtmael MA (2019). Digital Learning to Improve Safe and Effective Prescribing: A Systematic Review. Clin Pharmacol Ther, 106(6):1236-1245. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpt.1549
Cullinan S, O'Mahony D, and Byrne S (2017). Use of an e-Learning Educational Module to Better Equip Doctors to Prescribe for Older Patients: A Randomised Controlled Trial. Drugs Aging, 34(5): p. 367-374. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40266-017-0451-0

Staff

University of Birmingham

Professor Sarah Pontefract (Prof of Prescribing Education & Medicines Safety, SCRIPT Programme Director)
Professor Anthony Cox (Prof of Clinical Pharmacy and Drug Safety, Head of School of Pharmacy)
Hannah Vallance (eLearning Manager)
Tanvi Choudhary (eLearning Manager)
Dr Jennifer Veeren (eLearning Manager)
Harjeet Kaur (eLearning Manager)
Daniel Martin (Research Associate)
Divya Singh (Research Associate)
Professor Jamie Coleman (Hon Prof of Clinical Pharmacology & Medical Education)
Professor Robin Ferner (Emeritus Prof of Clinical Pharmacology)

OCB Media Ltd

Dr Nicolas Blackwell (Director)
Jennifer Ferguson (Director of Operations)

NHS England (NHSE)

Neil Ralph (Programme Lead, Technology Enhanced Learning)
Leigh Harrison (NHSE Education Content Development Programme Manager, Technology Enhanced Learning)

Awards and Endorsements

Awards

HSJ Patient Safety Awards. Shortlisted in Patient Safety Education and Training Award category (2026)
RCP Excellence in Patient Care Awards. Shortlisted in Medical Education and Training category (2018)
West Midlands Academic Health Science Network. Celebration of Innovation Award – Highly Commended for Patient Safety (Nursing SCRIPT) (2016)
Patient Safety Awards. Winner of Improving Safety in Medicine Management category (Medicine & Surgery SCRIPT) (2013)
Patient Safety Awards. Finalist in Education and Training category (Medicine & Surgery SCRIPT) (2013)
BMJ Improving Health Awards. Finalist: Excellence in Healthcare Education (Medicine & Surgery SCRIPT) (2012)

Endorsements

Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch, Investigation into the inadvertent administration of an oral liquid medicine into a vein (2019).
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Shared Learning Database: Consensus based national antimicrobial stewardship competencies for UK undergraduate healthcare professional education (2019).
Health Education England, Combating antimicrobial resistance: Educational approaches for the responsible prescribing of antimicrobials (2017).
Health Education England, The General Practice Nursing Workforce Development Plan (2017).
Royal College of Physicians, Supporting Junior Doctors in Safe Prescribing (2017).
Health Education England, Embedding national antimicrobial prescribing and stewardship competences into curricula: A survey of health education institutions (2016).
Health Education England, Prescribing Safety Assessment Guide for Foundation Doctors (2016).
Public Health England, Dental Antimicrobial stewardship toolkit (2016).

Contact details

If you would like more information about access to the SCRIPT eLearning programme, please contact info@safeprescriber.org
If you have any queries relating to content development and quality, email us at script@contacts.bham.ac.uk
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