Hub and Spoke Dispensing - Software Development for the Healthcare

The Journey to Independent Hub and Spoke

The structure of pharmacy dispensing in the UK is undergoing a seismic shift. Landmark legislation that came into effect in October 2025 fundamentally changes the "hub and spoke" model, creating unprecedented opportunities for efficiency, scale, and new commercial services.

Blueberry Health has the deep integration expertise required to help ambitious pharmacy groups navigate this transition and capitalise on the new landscape.

For several years, the hub and spoke model—where a central dispensing 'hub' serves multiple local 'spoke' pharmacies—has been restricted to pharmacies operating under a single legal entity. This allowed large, wholly-owned chains to centralise their dispensing, but it locked out independent groups and innovative service providers.

The new legislation removes this barrier, allowing for independent hub and spoke models. This means a central hub can now legally provide dispensing services to pharmacies it does not own, sparking a wave of new strategic possibilities.

Capitalising on the Opportunity: New Models Emerge

This new freedom enables two powerful operating models, both of which present significant but solvable technical challenges. Our team is already actively engaged in projects that address these exact scenarios:

1. The Collaborative Dispensing Hub: We are currently working with a forward-thinking group of independent pharmacies that have formed a consortium to invest in a shared, centralised dispensing facility. Their challenge is that each member pharmacy uses its own preferred PMR system. To succeed, they require a sophisticated integration layer that can seamlessly and securely receive prescription data from multiple, different PMR systems at the spokes and feed it into the hub's specialist dispensing software in a single, unified format.

2. The 'Dispensing-as-a-Service' (DaaS) Model: A second client, a large-scale automated pharmacy, is planning to leverage the new law to offer its services to the entire UK market. Their goal is to provide high-volume, remote pouch dispensing for care homes and compliance-aid patients on behalf of other pharmacy businesses. Their technical challenge is building a robust, scalable onboarding process and an API that allows any third-party pharmacy to securely connect to their platform and outsource dispensing with ease.

The Core Challenge: The Integration Gap

In both of these real-world examples, pharmacy groups are adopting specialist 'hub' software systems to manage the core dispensing workflow and connect to their spokes.

The real challenge, however, is not the initial connection. It’s the operational gaps these systems leave behind. The ecosystem of PMRs (Patient Medication Record systems), pharmacy apps (APPs), and Virtual Pharmacy Platforms (VPPs) was not designed for this interconnected model.

This creates critical gaps in your end-to-end process. How do you handle stock management across the hub and all spokes? How do you reconcile business intelligence and reporting data from multiple different systems? What about integrating with your care home or private prescription platforms?

This is where Blueberry's expertise becomes critical. We don't just connect systems; we build the "integration glue"—the bespoke middleware, custom dashboards, and robust APIs required to fill the functional gaps between your systems. We ensure a compliant, auditable, and seamless flow of data across your entire operation, from spoke to hub and back again, regardless of the software vendors involved.

Don't let technical hurdles dictate your strategic future. If you are exploring a third-party hub and spoke strategy and need an integration partner with proven expertise in the pharmacy sector, Blueberry can help.

Navigating the New Era of Hub and Spoke Dispensing

The Journey to Independent Hub and Spoke

Capitalising on the Opportunity: New Models Emerge

The Core Challenge: The Integration Gap

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