Changes to the legal status of hub-and-spoke arrangements have been delayed indefinitely, Community Pharmacy England (CPE) revealed on Friday (September 27).

The previous government announced in May that two models of hub-and-spoke dispensing between different pharmacy owners would be permitted from January 1 2025, pending parliamentary approval.

But the new government is “not in a position to implement these proposals” by the beginning of 2025 as previously announced, CPE said.

Read more: ‘Level playing field’: hub-and-spoke possible for all pharmacies from January

The Department of Health and Social Care (DH) told C+D last week (September 23) that it would provide an update on the hub-and-spoke timelines in due course.

“This government is committed to expanding the role of pharmacies and to better utilise the skills of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians including by cutting red tape,” they said.

 

Spoke too soon?

 

Company Chemists’ Association (CCA) chief executive Malcolm Harrison today (October 1) said that it is “disappointing that commitments made to support pharmacies in the 2019 contractual framework agreement are the subject of further delays”.

He added that the sector had struck a deal with the previous Conservative government in 2019 whereby community pharmacies would “make substantial efficiency savings” in exchange for changes to hub-and-spoke laws.

Harrison has been a longtime advocate for intercompany hub-and-spoke models, claiming in 2022 that it would “release the clinical capacity for pharmacists” - although he also warned at the time that while there are “significant benefits”, hub-and-spoke dispensing is not without “risks”.

There are “huge risks” involved with set-up fees, production costs, “the robotics on the logistics side of things”, and software and integration, he said.

Read more: Day Lewis - how we are preparing for the advent of hub-and-spoke

The same year, the Independent Pharmacies Association’s (IPA) Ian Strachan warned that the “merits of hub-and-spoke dispensing are shrouded in misconception”.

And in June, solicitor Susan Hunneyball, writing in C+D, warned that the new administration might not want to pursue the planned changes to hub-and-spoke law.

The previous government dithered publishing its hub-and-spoke response for more than two years after launching its consultation in March 2022, after a previous consultation on the model in 2016. 

Read more: ‘Survival opportunity’: Peak Pharmacy reports £4.4m loss as new hub launches

It said in May that the January launch had been chosen “to tie in with the commencement of the Windsor Framework” and to give it time to amend secondary legislation.

Currently, hub-and-spoke dispensing is only permitted between pharmacies within the same legal entity – meaning smaller independent pharmacies have been excluded from the model. 

But medicines that have been assembled and dispensed at a registered pharmacy can be “sold or supplied at or from a retail pharmacy business” that belongs to a different legal entity, if and when the legislation is passed.