Hub and spoke dispensing

As part of the Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework (CPCF) 5-year deal (2019 to 2024), the government committed to pursuing legislative change to enable all community pharmacies to benefit from ‘hub and spoke’ dispensing models, with the intention of supporting efficiencies for pharmacies and freeing up pharmacists and their teams for other tasks such as providing clinical services to patients.

Hub and spoke dispensing is where parts of the dispensing process are undertaken in separate pharmacy premises. Typically, there are many ‘spoke’ pharmacies to one ‘hub’ pharmacy. The concept is that the simple, routine aspects of assembling prescriptions can take place on a large scale in a ‘hub’ that usually makes use of automated processes. This means that pharmacists and other staff in the ‘spokes’ are freed up to provide more direct patient care. Currently it is only possible when the hub pharmacy forms part of the same retail business as the spoke pharmacy.

This consultation seeks views and comments on proposals which will make changes to legislation to facilitate the use of hub and spoke dispensing between pharmacies of different legal entities. It includes proposals on 2 different models of hub and spoke dispensing:

• model 1, where the medicines are returned assembled from the hub to the spoke pharmacy before supply to the patient
• model 2, where the hub pharmacy supplies medicines directly to the patient

We are also proposing to enable dispensing doctors (GPs who also dispense medicines and who generally serve remote or rural areas) to access hub pharmacies.