Kamson Pharmacy to deliver more clinical services after installing hub and spoke technology

Kamsons Pharmacy has announced that it has implemented a state-of-the-art hub and spoke dispensing model with the aim of freeing up more time to deliver clinical services.

The family-owned group, which has 85 pharmacies across England, has installed the FLOWRx Auto Hub in its new warehouse in Uckfield, Sussex.

Its pharmacies will use the FLOWRx InStore software to ensure their pharmacy spokes have full visibility of every prescription dispensed offsite and its status.

Once orders are received back in branch, FLOWRx InStore will also guide pharmacy teams through the dispensing process for any items that could not be dispensed by the hub.

Dave Howells, deputy chief operations officer for Kamsons, explained that whilst the new pharmacy contract puts even greater emphasis on the requirement for pharmacies to deliver more clinically-led services, dispensing remains ‘core’ to what pharmacies do.

“We knew that moving to a hub and spoke model was one of the ways that we could release capacity in branch to create more time to deliver services while still maintaining our incredibly high dispensing volumes,” said Howells.

“After looking at a number of options, we opted for the FLOWRx solution by Centred Solutions as it provides us with one end-to-end solution and has the ability to handle our high volume of items.

“Moving to a hub and spoke model will allow us to grow the range of innovative services we are already delivering and ensure that our network of pharmacists and independent prescribers have the time they need to spend with patients.”

There are currently 13 pharmacies using the hub for their repeat original packs with more pharmacies joining in due course.

The hub is already dispensing an average of 45,000 packs a week – more than 80 per cent of packs requested by the branches.

Currently 13 Kamsons pharmacies are now using the hub for their repeat original packs as the hub ramps up. Throughout the course of the year the group will roll out this model of dispensing to a number of its pharmacies. Although it is early days the hub is already dispensing an average of 45,000 packs a week – more than 80% of packs requested by the branches. This leaves plenty of scope to ramp up quickly and fulfil items for other branches.

Ashley Kilgas, chief commercial officer at Centred Solutions, said: “For those considering this way of working, it is important to remember that hub and spoke is so much more than a system. It’s a significant change to the way pharmacies work.

“Our engineers are experts in hub and spoke workflows, data management, complex integration and governance.

“Our solutions team are trained pharmacists and pharmacy logistics experts who have spent many years working in a hub and spoke pharmacy environment before joining the team. Their experience in this area is unparalleled. They have been able to use that vast amount of knowledge and experience to guide the team at Kamsons through their hub and spoke journey.”