Independent support group Avicenna has revealed plans to offer a hub-and-spoke dispensing service to members if the legal barriers are removed.

Avicenna had sought legal advice on investing in a dispensing hub and was "taking its views forward", said chief executive Salim Jetha at the Avicenna conference in Bali on Wednesday (May 28).

The current law on hub-and-spoke dispensing, which prevents the model being used unless the dispensing hub and pharmacy are both owned by the same business, put independents at a "great disadvantage" to the multiples, Mr Jetha said.

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	"We would require some changes in the law to able to offer a [hub-and-spoke] service to our members, but when it comes around we'll be ready for it," he added.

Avicenna members at the conference had mixed views on whether the dispensing model would benefit the profession.

Contractor Chandra Ondhia of Worlingham Pharmacy in Norwich told C+D he welcomed anything that would free up pharmacists from dispensing so they could focus on their patient-facing "strengths".

But Shamraiz Iqbal of Radcliffe Pharmacy in Bury said that, although independents were currently at a disadvantage, he was concerned a hub-and-spoke model would mean pharmacists prioritised services at the expense of supplying medicines.

"All of the services should be attached to the core part of dispensing because that's what defines us," he told C+D.

Earlier this month, Community Pharmacy Scotland warned that the Scottish government had not thought through its plans to pilot robotic dispensing hubs in selected NHS health boards.

In March, Boots announced it would pilot a dispensing hub in Preston to support 50 of its pharmacy branches. The same month, pharmacy groups called on the government to relax the rules around dispensing so independent pharmacies could operate hub-and-spoke models.

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