A System Under Pressure: The NHS Contract Context
At the same time as the sector is entering a critical phase of NHS contract reform, hub and spoke legislation has opened new operational models.
Negotiations for the next Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework (CPCF)—the core NHS dispensing contract—have now begun, with discussions covering funding, service changes, and the future role of pharmacy in 2026/27 and beyond
And the backdrop is stark.
- Community pharmacies are described as being in “real economic peril” in 2026
- The sector is facing rising costs, workforce pressures, and increasing demand
- Industry leaders highlight a multi-billion-pound funding gap and the need for urgent reform
Even with the recent uplift to around £3.073 billion in funding for 2025/26, the contract is still widely seen as insufficient to match workload and inflationary pressures.
From Dispensing Volume to Clinical Value
A key theme likely to emerge from these negotiations is a shift in expectations. The future NHS contract is not just about dispensing—it’s about:
- Expanding clinical services
- Supporting prescribing and enhanced Pharmacy First models
- Moving care closer to patients in the community
In other words, pharmacies are being asked to do more clinically, not just more operationally. But here’s the tension:
The contract is evolving faster than the operating model of most pharmacies.
Why Hub and Spoke Becomes Critical
This is where hub and spoke moves from “nice-to-have” to strategically essential.
The NHS is effectively signalling that:
- Dispensing efficiency must improve
- Clinical capacity must increase
- Workforce pressure must reduce to make this sustainable
Yet traditional, in-branch dispensing models struggle to deliver all three simultaneously.
Hub and spoke directly addresses this gap:
- It decouples increasing dispensing workload from preventing the provision of clinical services
- It creates the capacity needed to deliver new services, at scale
- It aligns pharmacy operations with the direction of NHS policy
In that sense, hub and spoke is not just an operational innovation—it is a contract-aligned transformation strategy.
The Strategic Question for Pharmacy Owners
The question is no longer: “Should we adopt hub and spoke?”
But rather: “How do we align our operating model with where the NHS contract is going?”
Because the direction is clear:
- More services
- More clinical responsibility
- More pressure on existing resources
Pharmacies that rely solely on traditional dispensing models risk being structurally misaligned with the future contract.
HubRx Perspective: A Service Built for the Next Contract
At HubRx, we believe the pharmacies that thrive under the next CPCF will be those that:
- Redesign their dispensing model today
- Invest in scalable infrastructure or expert-partners
- Prepare for a service-led revenue mix
Hub and spoke is not just about efficiency—it’s about future-proofing against contract evolution. As Baba Akomolafe, Pharmacist Director at Christchurch Health Centre Pharmacy recently stated:
“The hub and spoke debate in 2026 sometimes feels like going back to the 1970s — when people were still debating whether washing machines were worth it. The question was never whether they were cheaper.
The real value was the time and capacity they created.”
This is the moment where operational strategy and policy direction converge.
The NHS contract is changing. Expectations are rising. Pressures are intensifying.
And at the same time, the tools to adapt—like hub and spoke—are now accessible to all. Single-branch pharmacy businesses can simply, plug-in and use a service developed by industry experts.
Pharmacies that recognise that—and act on it—won’t just survive the next contract cycle.
They’ll define it.