For almost a decade, hub and spoke dispensing between different pharmacy businesses was a policy discussion rather than a practical option.
That changed on 1 October 2025, when regulations came into force in England permitting hub and spoke arrangements between different legal entities for the first time.
For pharmacy owners, this opens a question that used to be reserved for the large multiples. Could your dispensary become a spoke, freeing your team for patient-facing work? Or could it become a hub, producing compliance packs at volume for other pharmacies?
Either way, the answer runs through automation. A pharmacy dispensing robot is what makes hub-scale production possible, and this piece looks at how the model works, what the regulations require, and what the technology needs to deliver.
What Changed in October 2025
Hub and spoke dispensing within a single pharmacy business has been permitted for years. Branches of the same company could always centralise assembly.
The Human Medicines (Amendments Relating to Hub and Spoke Dispensing etc.) Regulations 2025 extended that to different legal entities. An independent pharmacy can now enter a written arrangement with a separately owned hub, which assembles or part-assembles the medicines before returning them to the spoke for supply to the patient.
Only one model is permitted: patient to spoke, spoke to hub, hub back to spoke, spoke to patient. The dispensed medicine must be labelled with the spoke’s name and address, along with the date the hub assembled it.
Community Pharmacy England’s hub and spoke guidance sets out the full requirements, including the written arrangements both parties must have in place.
The sector is still weighing it up. A Community Pharmacy England poll in November 2025 found around 36% of pharmacies not yet using hub and spoke were still exploring their options.
Why the Model Depends on Automation
A hub only makes commercial sense if it produces at a volume and accuracy level that manual dispensing can’t reach.
Filling trays by hand doesn’t scale. Every additional spoke means more technician hours, more checking time and more pressure on the same manual process. The economics collapse before the volume arrives.
Automated pouch production changes the shape of that curve. Evidence presented during the parliamentary debate on the regulations suggested that automated hub systems using tracking technology recorded dispensing error rates six times lower than manual processes.
Speed matters. Accuracy matters more. A hub is dispensing under another pharmacy’s name, and the written arrangements make responsibilities explicit. The production process has to stand up to that scrutiny.
The Machine Built for Hub-Scale Production
Within the PillPacPlus range, the Yuyama Proud NEO 400 is the system designed for hub and spoke pharmacies, online compliance services and large-volume production across multiple sites.
It holds 400 canisters, or 343 with a 57-canister slide unit, calibrated and bespoke for the medicines the hub actually dispenses. Output runs up to 60 pouches per minute.
Variable Cassette technology lets pharmacists calibrate cassettes for new medicines in two to three minutes through the JSD.NET software. For a hub serving multiple spokes with different formularies, that self-calibration removes a bottleneck that would otherwise slow every new arrangement.
For pharmacies building towards hub capacity rather than starting there, the Proud NEO 266 covers the ground in between, with the same cassette technology at 266 canisters.
Verification at Volume
Producing thousands of pouches is only half the operation. Every pouch still needs checking, and at hub volumes manual checking becomes the next ceiling.
This is where optical verification carries the load. The MDM Core optical pouch checking system verifies up to 5,400 pouches per hour, using double-sided imaging and pill recognition by shape, colour and size.
Every result is stored digitally, searchable by patient or date. For a hub, that digital audit trail isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the evidence base that lets a spoke owner trust what arrives, and it’s the record both parties will reach for if anything is ever queried.
Pouches needing manual intervention are highlighted and pulled out, so pharmacist attention goes only where it’s needed.
What Spoke Pharmacies Gain
The case for becoming a spoke is about where the working week goes.
When assembly moves to a hub, technician time on routine production falls away. Pharmacist checking time reduces. The dispensary has more room, physically and mentally, for patient-facing work.
That aligns with where community pharmacy income is heading. Clinical services keep expanding, and delivering them requires protected pharmacist time that manual compliance dispensing consumes.
The spoke keeps its patient relationships. The hub carries the production load. The written arrangements define who is responsible for what.
Questions to Ask Before Committing Either Way
The regulations are new and the economic models are still forming, so this is a decision to approach with clear eyes.
A pharmacy considering hub status needs to know its true production capacity, its cost per pack at different volumes, and whether its current system has headroom or is already near its limit.
A pharmacy considering spoke status needs to understand what happens to its own compliance service, its care home commitments and its team structure when assembly moves out.
And any pharmacy still growing its own compliance business may conclude that in-house automation, at the right tier, delivers the same operational relief without a third party in the chain. Since 2014, PillPacPlus has introduced over 85 pharmacies to pouch dispensing, and most of them run exactly that model: their own production, their own patients, their own machine.
There’s no single right answer. There is a right question: what does your dispensing model need to look like in three years, and can your current setup carry it there?
Talk to PillPacPlus About Production at Scale
Hub and spoke between different businesses is now legal, live and being actively explored across the sector. Whether it’s right for your pharmacy depends on your volumes, your ambitions and your appetite for either role.
If you’re weighing up hub-scale production, or simply want to understand what a pharmacy dispensing robot could deliver within your own four walls first, contact PillPacPlus to talk through your patient numbers and see the Proud NEO range in action.
This content is provided for general information and educational purposes only. It does not constitute legal, clinical, or regulatory advice. Pharmacies should always consult current GPhC standards, local NHS guidance, and their own professional judgement when designing and operating their services.
