HubRx has appointed Dr Sarah Passmore as superintendent pharmacist ahead of launching what the company called "the UK's first state-of-the-art automated pharmacy
hub".
Dr Passmore brings more than 20 years of pharmacy experience - having held key regulatory roles with Rowlands Pharmacy over a 11-year tenure, which also saw her
involved in a number of pharmacy automation projects.
Commenting on her appointment, Dr Passmore said: "As a pharmacist, who has spent more than 10 years working within community pharmacy, I'm excited by what a hub and
spoke model for prescription dispensing can bring.
"Pharmacists are highly trained in delivering clinical services to patients - and like me - it's often a part of their job that they thoroughly enjoy. The option of
using hub and spoke to support dispensing prescriptions will give community pharmacists the gift of more time that can be spent helping patients.
"I'm excited to join HubRx and for it to become the first state-of-the-art automated pharmacy hub designed for independent community pharmacists to launch in the UK."
"If we stand still, we will die. We have to keep moving, and we have to keep changing" said Patrick Gompels, co-owner of Gompels Limited, while emphasising
the need for innovation in community pharmacy services, during the recent Pharmacy Business Conference 2024.
Centered on the theme 'Pharmacy of Tomorrow,' the conference, held at the Hilton Wembley on April 28, focused on adopting and adapting innovative technology as
well as new ways of working and thinking to enhance patient services.
Patrick was joined by Mayank Patel of Pearl Chemist Group and Michael Lennox, CEO of Community Pharmacy Somerset (LPC), during the panel discussion on innovation
in community pharmacy services, moderated by Reena Barai, pharmacist and owner of S G Barai Pharmacy.
On the changes he made at Gompels, Patrick said: "The first thing we did was a complete overhaul of all of our systems. Pretty much everything was stripped down."
He shared that Gompels has embraced innovation by partnering with forward-thinking companies like Titan PMR, Drug Comparison, and Real World Analytics to enhance
their processes and data analysis capabilities.
Community pharmacies are located within the very hotspots of peoples' communities, yet a staggering 720 individual businesses have stopped trading since 2015.
It has been called a "national disgrace and a betrayal to the elderly and the vulnerable" by sector leaders.
The funding crisis has been compounded by a gruelling 18-24 months post-Covid, both have which have placed immense pressure on the retail pharmacy sector.
The population is aging and with this comes patients living with a range of long-term health conditions. Medication regimes are becoming ever more complex and as a
result, maintaining prescription and medication adherence services is challenging to say the least.
Yet the public feel great warmth towards their local pharmacy businesses, and this positive attitude only increased during the pandemic. In fact, in a recent report
launched by Omnicell on the Changing Role of the Pharmacist, a survey of public opinion found that a third (32 per cent) said they perception of their local
pharmacy had changed for the better since the start of the pandemic and nearly half (44 per cent) said they are more familiar with their local pharmacy services
since the start of COVID.
This has meant that the role of the pharmacist has also changed and evolved; in part due to a national need and drive for more patients to be seen and supported
clinically by pharmacists.
This change of service provider role has slowly been developing over the last couple of years. Pharmacists are currently carrying out 65 million consultations
a year - a staggering rise of 44 per cent in the last 24 months alone.
A policy brief, developed by researchers from the University of Bath and University of Strathclyde with funding from Sigma Pharmaceuticals, has recommended
the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS to increase community pharmacy funding to avoid damaging closures and diminution of quality.
The report launched on Wednesday (12 June) at an event in the House of Commons, attended by Members of Parliament, senior policymakers and the pharmacy industry,
analysed community pharmacy policies and spoke to stakeholders to explore their opinions of the future of community pharmacy.
It was found that patients value their community pharmacies, but staff feel demotivated, insecure and undervalued.
Stakeholders and policies suggested that in the future, medicines should be supplied by automated 'hub and spoke' dispensing, enabling community pharmacy staff to
provide services that relieve pressure on GP surgeries, such as long-term conditions management, urgent care and public health.
Lo's Pharmacy, a Yorkshire-based pharmacy chain is adopting a new approach to hub and spoke in a first of a kind model to be used in the UK.
The pharmacy will centralise its repeat prescription dispensing service for original packs with the support of its medication wholesaler.
The independent group, which has 25 NHS community pharmacies across Yorkshire, will install Centred Solution's Automated FLOWRx Hub product at its central dispensing
facility in Wath-Upon-Dearne, South Yorkshire.
But unlike other FLOWRx customers, who pick packs from a robotic dispensing system or internal warehouse, Lo's Pharmacy will receive patient-specific flow totes
directly from their wholesaler which can then be processed by their hub.
This workflow has not been used anywhere else in the country until now and it is a revolutionary approach to hub and spoke dispensing, showing what can be achieved
when key players decide to collaborate. It further demonstrates that there are range of variations of hub and spoke models available and accessible to independent
and multiple community pharmacies across the UK.
Ahead of the launch of UK's first state-of-the-art automated hub for independent community pharmacists, HubRx has announced the appointment of Karl Wooldridge
as operations director and Matthew Tollefson as chief financial officer.
Karl brings more than 14 years of sector experience to his new role with HubRx. Having begun his career as an independent community pharmacist, Karl has gone on
to hold key roles within pharmacy automation, including managing Phoenix Medical Supplies' offsite dispensing service.
Commenting on his appointment, Karl said: "I'm delighted to have joined the team. The pandemic has further highlighted the important role pharmacists can play in
keeping the nation healthy, not least in the delivery of the latest vaccination programme. The focus is now on pharmacists offering more clinical services, but
to be able to achieve that the dispensing burden needs to be reduced.
"HubRx is pioneering, our approach will transform community pharmacy. We're investing in cutting-edge technology to create an automated dispensing hub that will
create capacity for pharmacists, allow them to grow and expand their skills."
Matthew joins from Leeds-based corporate finance firm, Sentio Partners having also held positions with Mazars and Ernst & Young.
The Pharmacists Defence Association (PDA) has welcomed the government's action of publishing 'AI Regulation White Paper' which will regulate the artificial
intelligence (AI) system used in pharmacy on Wednesday (29 March).
The Association had raised concerns about the risk of patient harm due to inappropriate use of so-called AI to include that seen in some of the pharmacy systems
undertaking clinical checks.
For some time, it has been receiving concerns from practicing pharmacists describing examples of the potentially detrimental impact of automation and online pharmacy
provision on patient safety and pharmacy practice.
As a result, it raised these concerns with regulators, Chief Pharmaceutical Officers, and parliamentarians in all four nations of the UK to urge action.
It said: "This is required not only to protect patients, but also the frontline pharmacists who could be blamed for potential harm caused by inappropriate use of so
called 'AI' systems implemented by their employer."
The PDA therefore, welcomes the announcement from the UK government that they intend to strengthen regulation of such technology, empowering existing regulators to
come up with tailored, context-specific approaches that suit the way AI is actually being used in their sectors; this will include pharmacy.
Omnicell Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Omnicell - an American healthcare technology company, has signed an agreement with the shareholders of Hub and Spoke Innovations Limited to acquire Hub and Spoke Innovations.
Hub and Spoke Innovations Limited is distributor of the Pharmaself24 prescription collection kiosk in Great Britain.
The move will complement Omnicell's total solution technology portfolio for retail pharmacy in the UK, including a pack-pick dispensing robot, automated MDS filling
machine and eMAR solution, thereby helping pharmacies to improve workflows and offer a 24/7 access to medications and patient care.
It will also help community pharmacies achieve their goals, as they increasingly look at ways to make their businesses more efficient and free up staff to offer more pharmaceutical care and services to patients.
In short, the deal would enable Omnicell to offer a wider range of digital technologies to streamline retail pharmacy operations, allowing pharmacists to spend more time with patients and focus on value-added, revenue-generating healthcare services, such as vaccinations.
American healthcare technology company Omnicell has appointed Edward Platt as the new Senior Commercial Director of its UK community pharmacy division.
Along with this new role, Edward, who joined Omnicell in 2015, will continue his current leadership remit for Omnicell's UK & Ireland hospital division.
He will be leading a revamped commercial team, which would be responsible for increasing Omnicell's footprint of automation and consumable solutions delivered into
UK community pharmacies.
As part of the revamp, the company has created dedicated specialist teams to ensure the needs and challenges of community pharmacists (small independents and small
multiple operators) can be fully understood and supported.
Jhoots Group, a West Midlands based independent community pharmacy chain, has unveiled plans to expand its digital services after securing a funding worth
£8.23m from HSBC bank.
The new money will allow the groups branches to offer a digital platform for customers to request prescriptions online, enabling the implementation of a hub and
spoke dispensing system to automate prescription deliveries.
The innovation aims to reduce the burden of manual processes on pharmacists, allowing staff to use their time efficiently and support the NHS by offering vaccines
and minor ailment medicine services.
San Jhooty, chief operating officer at Jhoots Group, said: "When faced with the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic, primary and community services came
together to support the community and each other.
The Competition and Market Authority (CMA) has suggested regulatory levers to curb "potential competition risk" from hub and spoke dispensing.
In its response to the hub and spoke dispensing consultation, led by the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) last week, the competition watchdog said that
a pro-active approach to monitoring the effect of hub and spoke dispensing and subsequent early consideration of any competition concerns was likely to be more
effective and potentially less costly than any "ex-post enforcement any ex-post enforcement or unpicking of subsequently embedded competition issues".
The competition watchdog has made a few suggestions to identify and remove the barriers to competition that might emerge with the new business models entering the
market. It has asked the department to enable a "more level playing field".
"Smaller independent pharmacies should, have improved access to automation and new dispensing models," it said.
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The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has finally published its response to the 2022 consultation on hub and spoke dispensing.
Considering the consultation evidence and further discussions, the government has expressed its intention to progress the proposals for enabling hub and spoke models
across different legal entities as soon as possible.
This will be achieved by using the enabling powers outlined in Part 2 of the Medicines and Medical Devices Act 2021 (MMDA) to amend the Medicines Act 1968 and the
HMRs.
Furthermore, the DHSC has decided to proceed with the implementation of the two models of hub and spoke dispensing that it consulted on.
The government response to the consultation reads: "Having considered the responses, the government intend to proceed to implement the necessary changes to medicines
legislation to remove the current restrictions that prevent the hub and spoke dispensing models from operating across different legal entities found in section 10 of
the Medicines Act 1968.