The state of pharmacy staff’s mental health, as revealed by Community Pharmacy England’s survey, is deeply worrying and should sound alarm bells for all those working in pharmacy. Current ways of working are unsustainable and need to be changed. With 70% of pharmacy staff reporting that their mental health is suffering, now is the time to look at new ways of working.
Underlying this crisis are systemic resource issues including chronic staff shortages, unsustainable workload and financial pressures.
To address these challenges, we need an urgent rethink of how pharmacies operate. A hub and spoke pharmacy model coupled with dispensing technology could free up capacity, reduce burnout, and refocus pharmacy teams on what matters most: patient care, explains Louise Laban, Director of Sales and Marketing at Centred Solutions.
The current community pharmacy model is pushing many staff to their limits according to the Workforce Survey report by Community Pharmacy England. It found that 95% of staff say shortages are increasing pressure and recruitment is a major issue, with more than half of pharmacy owners reporting difficulties when it comes to hiring permanent staff.
A heavier workload was cited as a top concern by 88% of staff. That should come as no surprise with pharmacy branches expected to deliver an increasing number of patient facing services on top of existing, and sometimes growing, medication dispensing volumes. To add to this medication shortages are contributing to “moral injury” and abuse from patients appears to be growing with more than half of staff saying they had experienced this behaviour.
Unsurprisingly, given the current shortfall in pharmacy funding, many pharmacy owners said staffing costs were unsustainable with this underfunding continuing to force pharmacy closures or leading to a reduction in services. Pharmacy teams continue to be stuck in a cycle of staffing shortages, overwork and stress, impacting not only staff but patients too.
An adequate funding contract for pharmacy is crucial but it is likely that contract negotiations for the 2026/27 will not be enough to fill the £2.6 billion funding gap identified by the economic analysis carried out by NHS England.
But there is one way that pharmacies can relieve pressure on staff now. We have seen first-hand how a hub and spoke model creates more time and capacity in branch to concentrate on clinical services, consultations, and patient care rather than mass dispensing.
Our evidence shows that an original pack hub and spoke model for repeat prescriptions can:
By offloading the repetitive, time-consuming dispensing work, staff in pharmacy spokes have the ability to spend more time on NHS and private clinical services. We have seen how this shift can reduce burnout, improve job satisfaction, boost morale and reduce attrition.
Of course, deploying a hub and spoke solution is not without its hurdles. Change of any kind can be difficult for staff who have been used to working in a certain way for a long time. At first glance, learning new process and systems can seem like additional work so it is important to find a hub and spoke partner who are experienced in change management and provide effective training. We spoke to our customers about their staff’s reaction to implementing hub and spoke, 83% said staff had initially been uncertain but they now felt positive about the model and 17% said staff had been positive from the outset.
One of the biggest frustrations with technology can come from the number of systems that staff find themselves using, so it’s important to identify a solution that can fully integrate with other pharmacy systems to reduce the unnecessary burden on staff. For example, our FLOWRx systems can interface with all PMR systems as well as warehouse management systems and other platforms. Equally, one of the most critical challenges for spoke pharmacies is ensuring they don’t lose control of the patient experience.
While hubs are designed to create efficiency by handling the bulk of prescription assembly, the spoke pharmacy remains the face of patient care, answering queries, reassuring patients and providing safe and timely prescriptions. Without clear visibility into what is happening at the dispensing hub, spoke pharmacies risk being left in the dark causing additional stress and pressure.
The pressures facing UK community pharmacy are real and urgent and the findings from CPE’s survey are a clear signal that “business as usual” isn’t working.
But by embracing innovative operational models like hub and spoke and FLOWRx dispensing technology, pharmacies have a realistic path which will allow them to relieve pressure, restore capacity and improve both service delivery and staff wellbeing.
Hub and spoke offers a sustainable future for pharmacies and their teams. If we get this right, we won’t just avert a crisis, we will build a more sustainable, resilient and fulfilling future for community pharmacy.
We help pharmacies of all sizes automate original pack dispensing with reliable, easy-to-implement technology. Our workflow software streamlines every stage of the process, giving you the efficiency gains of hub and spoke dispensing without the high costs or complexity.
If you are ready to improve accuracy, reduce manual workload and free your team to focus on patient care, we are here to support you.
Contact us to schedule a demo