NHS England say that retiring these cards is necessary because they do not support an improved level of security for signing electronic prescriptions and they rely on Gemalto software to function, which is known to cause issues for some organisations. Practices now need to:
- Identify anyone using one of the affected smartcards and order a replacement. More details on how to identify these cards and the retirement process as a whole is on the NHS Digital website.
- Practice managers should contact any locums who work for the practice to make sure they are aware that they need to check their cards as well. This is important given that much of the communications activity around the switch-off has focused on practices rather than clinicians working for them.
- Ensure that they have the Oberthur software installed on their devices.