Timeline for New Pharmacy Hub and Spoke Legislation Announced

As Community Pharmacy England confirms new legislation to broaden hub and spoke arrangements will come into effect on October 1 this year, our Head of Marketing, Shelley Dyer, takes a look at what this means and what pharmacy should do next.

Legislation enabling hub and spoke dispensing between different legal entities is set to take effect on 1 October 2025, pending approval by both Houses of Parliament, Community Pharmacy England has confirmed. The change will allow hub and spoke dispensing between pharmacies in different legal entities. For new hubs, operational implementation may not begin until 29 October 2025, since hubs are expected to notify their integrated care boards 28 days in advance. Discussions are ongoing between CPE and the Department of Health and Social Care regarding further regulatory updates to support NHS pharmacies in subcontracting part of their dispensing services under this new model.

The changes to hub and spoke legislation have been a long time coming and for many pharmacies they can’t come soon enough. The upcoming legislation will help level the playing field for smaller and independent pharmacies, enabling them to benefit from centralised dispensing models previously only available to larger groups. Equally, there will be a number of pharmacies who have never considered hub and spoke who should now be looking at the opportunities this provides.

Options for Smaller Pharmacy Groups

There is a perception that for smaller pharmacy groups the only hub and spoke option available to them is a third-party hub and that is absolutely not the case. At Centred Solutions we successfully work with pharmacy groups who have as few as three branches and as many as 200+ branches . We are also speaking to cohorts of like-minded pharmacy groups who are looking to set up their own co-operative dispensing hub so they keep the benefits and ownership in house.

With timelines now confirmed it is important for all community pharmacies to immediately start exploring their options around hub and spoke so they understand the range of models now available to them. The Government has made it clear that it believes reform is needed alongside the new funding deal. Hub and spoke is one of these reforms as it allows community pharmacies to create capacity in branch and maintain, or even increase, item volumes by streamlining the dispensing process.

Range of Hub and Spoke Benefits

Many in the sector remain sceptical about the benefits of hub and spoke because, up until recently, the evidence has been missing to demonstrate these benefits. However, Centred Solutions are hub and spoke specialists and we have been providing hub and spoke solutions to a range of pharmacy groups for over three years now. This has allowed us to evaluate the true effectiveness of hub and spoke models in different environments. Using this data, alongside national data, we found a range of benefits for pharmacy. Using hub and spoke can reduce payroll costs per item by up to 81%, take 50% of total dispensing volumes out of branch and release at least 4 hours of pharmacist time and 8 hours of dispenser/technician time on average, per day, in an average pharmacy. The return on investment can be realised in under two years.

Hub and Spoke Experts

Community pharmacies also need to make sure that they put the right hub and spoke model in place for their business. As market demand for hub and spoke has started to grow so has the variety of solutions on offer. However, with the exception of FLOWRx by Centred Solutions, none of these solutions, nor combination of solutions, were designed specifically for hub and spoke. There are some great options out there for very small scale set ups, but it is important to remember that for robotic dispensing systems and traditional PMR systems, hub and spoke is simply an “add on” – it’s not the core solution they were built to do. FLOWRx is the only scalable solution currently available in the UK market that was designed by hub and spoke experts to be used specifically for a centralised dispensing pharmacy hub with branch spokes, end to end. It is the only solution with an automated labelling unit that can label up to 1500 packs an hour with a single line. No manual labelling process can come close to this, even with an automated workflow. This is one of the biggest efficiencies in the pharmacy workflow.

When considering hub and spoke, start by looking at which elements of the dispensing process are taking up the most time in terms of workforce and skill. Then look at the automation available to take on the most time consuming tasks and make sure it has the ability to scale to meet future demand.

Guide to Hub and Spoke

The pharmacy sector is on the cusp of a significant transformation when it comes to the way it dispenses medication. This long awaited shift has the ability to redefine how community pharmacies operate, but it means major change for community pharmacy and there will be a lot of noise to cut through. As experts in hub and spoke, we've created a comprehensive guide, "Hub and Spoke Is Coming", to help pharmacy teams understand the upcoming changes and how to make the most of them.