It’s Not Only Smarter Dispensing Workflows that Create Capacity.

With the pharmacy funding settlement for 2026/27 now in place, it is important to look at how technology can help maximise efficiency and value across the entire business, improving stock availability and reducing the operational burden on pharmacy teams. 

Against a backdrop of ongoing medicines shortages and fluctuating wholesaler availability, pharmacy operators are increasingly looking for systems that can automate and support the purchasing process. Victoria-OS is a pharmacy ordering platform, developed by EPoS Logic Solutions Ltd. The platform allows you to buy on price, automatically route orders to preferred suppliers and, where products are unavailable, move them through a predefined chain of alternative wholesalers. This ensures pharmacies can maintain greater consistency in stock procurement without relying on staff to manually search multiple suppliers for every unavailable line.

The challenge of medicine shortages has further highlighted the value of automated cascade systems. Against this backdrop, it is  important that pharmacies have an opportunity to invest in systems that not only support growth but also protect margins. Victoria-OS allows pharmacies to establish both local and centralised purchasing rules that help support group pharmcies by mandating across every branch.  The platform can also support unlimited supplier cascades and provides product mapping tools designed to maximise the chances of successful supply. As shortages continue to place pressure on pharmacy teams, reducing the time spent sourcing stock can free staff to focus on patient care and clinical services. 

Beyond ordering, the system also provides detailed purchasing analytics, allowing pharmacies to monitor supplier performance, analyse buying patterns and identify opportunities to improve profitability. This visibility is becoming increasingly important as operators seek to make every pound of funding work harder. By combining automation, purchasing control and real-time reporting, cascade ordering systems can help pharmacies make more informed decisions while reducing administrative workload. 

As the community pharmacy sector enters a new funding period, the focus on spending smarter should not be ignored, however with supply management in place attention can then turn to how efficiencies can be made in the dispensing process. Pharmacies have become the front door to the NHS and while these services create new opportunities, they also place greater demands on pharmacy teams who are already over-stretched. It is crucial that pharmacies find ways to create more capacity in branch if they are to succeed in delivering more NHS and private services. This means creating efficiencies in the dispensing process for pharmacists and their teams, so they have the time to focus on activities that support patient health and wellbeing.  By streamlining the dispensing workflow, improving stock management and reducing the need for manual checks, pharmacies can free up valuable time while maintaining accuracy and patient safety. 

Victoria-OS Script Manager has been designed specifically to help pharmacies achieve these goals. The software solution integrates seamlessly with existing PMR systems and focuses on improving the efficiency, accuracy and cost-effectiveness of repeat dispensing operations for original packs. Once prescriptions have been clinically checked within the PMR by the pharmacist, Victoria-OS Script Manager enables them to be safely processed more efficiently by the wider pharmacy team, so the pharmacist is free to get on with delivering clinical services.  

A key feature of the system is its ability to batch process prescriptions. Once the pharmacist has clinically checked the prescription, pharmacy teams receive a pick list for more than 30 prescriptions at a time and pick them as a single workflow saving valuable time. The software then guides pharmacy teams through the remainder of the dispensing process, allowing prescriptions for the same patient to be labelled, sorted and automatically combined into a patient specific basket before being bagged. Verification is built into every step of the workflow, safely reducing reliance on the pharmacist and traditional accuracy checking processes.  

The solution is also flexible enough to support a variety of dispensing models. Whether operating a local branch dispensing model, a centralised hub-and-spoke arrangement or multiple regional hubs, pharmacies can adapt the system to suit their operational requirements with minimal investment. 

As community pharmacy continues its transition towards a more clinically focused future, operational efficiency will become increasingly important. Solutions that streamline dispensing, improve stock control and reduce administrative burden will play a vital role in creating the capacity pharmacists need to spend more time delivering clinical services, supporting patients and strengthening the role of pharmacy within primary care.