Pharmacy2U, an online pharmacy, has unveiled its £3.5 million prescription centralised dispensing facility in Leeds. The site can despatch 1 million prescription items a month, increasing the company’s capacity by around ten-fold.
The facility, which opened in November 2015, dispenses NHS repeat prescriptions, electronic private prescriptions and prescriptions from Pharmacy2U’s online doctor. Pharmacy2U started using robotics in 2005.
Unlike a hub and spoke system, Pharmacy2U centralised dispensing system posts the drugs directly to patients.
“We were the first pharmacy of this type in the UK, and we feel we have changed the model of assembling and dispensing prescriptions,” says Daniel Lee, pharmacist, founder and managing director of Pharmacy2U.
Pharmacy2U has had some challenges in the past, with its directors facing the General Pharmaceutical Council fitness-to-practice committee over alleged sales of patient data, and technical problems meaning delays in distribution of ordered medicines over Christmas and New Year in 2015/2016.
Lee is confident that the contingency plans built in, such as the generator that is now in place, and the disaster recovery plans that are alongside each part of the process, can improve the reliability of the service in the future.
