Member

The noble Lord, Lord Kamall, expressed his disappointment that we are introducing model 1 only. I know that, in 2022, the previous Government ran a consultation on hub-and-spoke dispensing arrangements, which suggested for consultation two models of dispensing. On why we have gone for model 1, stakeholders raised concerns that model 2 risks undermining the important relationship between the patient and their local community pharmacy. Implementation would require additional safeguards to avoid this, which I am sure the noble Lord would describe as an unintended consequence. We took the concerns from the consultation on board, which is the reason why we decided to proceed with model 1, but I assure the noble Lord that we will of course keep this under review.