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An amendment to the Human Medicines Regulations allowing hub and spoke dispensing to operate between separate businesses is set to take legal effect at the start of October, Community Pharmacy England has indicated.

Updating the pharmacy sector in England after the Government yesterday (April 29) laid amendments to the regulation, CPE said that since pharmacies will likely be required to notify their integrated care board of their decision to take part in the dispensing model 28 dats in advance, the earliest date from which they will be able to dispense remotely assembled prescriptions is likely to be October 29. 

As previously announced, the Government has approved 'Model 1' hub and spoke dispensing, whereby prescriptions are sent electronically to a hub for assembly before being sent back to the pharmacy to be dispensed to the patient. 

The amendment laid yesterday states that dispensed medicines must be labelled with the spoke pharmacy's name and address and the date on which the hub assembled the prescription or part of it, in addition to the usual information carried on the label.

Pharmacies and assembly hubs will be allowed to share patients' information without their explicit consent through an information gateway "which includes a requirement for the spoke to display an appropriate notice to patients and staff at the spoke and hub to maintain the confidentiality of the patient data," said CPE.

The negotiator said it will provide a full briefing on the amendments and hub and spoke dispensing "in the coming weeks".

Commenting on the announcement, Daniel Lee of medicines assembly company HubRx said: “At last, the final stages of the legislative process to grant all pharmacies the option of using hub and spoke dispensing has now been confirmed and will come into effect in October. 

"For far too long the ability to use hub and spoke to manage unprecedented dispensing volumes has been closed to many pharmacies, and only available to a select few.

"Independents can now start planning to implement this with confidence."