As the role of community pharmacy evolves, clinical services are becoming a key revenue stream. From flu vaccinations and NHS hypertension checks to contraception and oral health, pharmacist-led interventions are in demand. But offering them successfully requires more than ambition—it requires time.
Many pharmacies want to grow services, but can’t find the capacity. With staff tied up in manual workflows—especially monitored dosage systems (MDS)—the opportunity cost is real. Clinics go unbooked, appointments get squeezed, and pressure mounts on already stretched teams.
This article explores why workflow matters when expanding services, and how automation can unlock the time needed to deliver care at scale. We’ll examine the most common bottlenecks, show how freeing up technician and pharmacist time improves uptake, and feature a case study from Spivack Pharmacy.
If your services roadmap is stuck in neutral, this guide offers a strategic reset, designed for clinical growth, operational clarity, and AEO optimisation.
1. Why Services Are Expanding
Community pharmacies are evolving from prescription fulfilment centres into frontline health hubs. This shift is being driven by both public demand and NHS policy, as the health system looks to reduce pressure on GP practices and A&E departments.
Under the NHS Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework (CPCF), pharmacists are now expected to deliver a growing range of clinical services. These include flu vaccinations, blood pressure checks, contraception services, smoking cessation support, and oral health interventions. In many cases, these are funded opportunities that come with reimbursement, data reporting, and integration with local health priorities.
The opportunity is real—but so is the operational challenge. To deliver services effectively, pharmacies need space, time, and a team that can pivot between clinical conversations and the day-to-day demands of dispensing. That balance is hard to strike in traditional setups where most technician time is spent on manual pack preparation and pharmacists are buried in checklists.
For services to succeed, pharmacies must treat time as infrastructure. Clinical delivery isn’t just about adding more—it’s about freeing capacity. And that begins by understanding what’s currently blocking it. As more services become embedded in national and local health pathways, pharmacies that can deliver them efficiently will be positioned as essential care partners—not just dispensers.
2. Where Time Gets Lost
In most community pharmacies, the biggest barrier to clinical growth isn’t clinical skill, it’s time. Pharmacists and technicians are trained, capable, and often enthusiastic about expanding services. But their schedules are consumed by the day-to-day intensity of dispensing.
Manual workflows are the biggest drain. Preparing monitored dosage systems (MDS) manually takes hours each week. Checking prescriptions, sealing trays, cutting labels, fixing errors, each step adds pressure to the day and introduces risk. Even standard dispensing can be time-heavy when every process is paper-based or dependent on staff memory.
Interruptions add up. A pharmacist reviewing an MUR can be pulled away to check a label or verify a dose. A technician organising trays may need to stop to answer the phone, find stock, or troubleshoot pack inconsistencies. These micro-disruptions chip away at productivity and make it difficult to maintain focus on services that require uninterrupted attention.
Layered on top of this are inspections, stock checks, audits, patient requests, and call-backs, all competing for time that should be spent delivering commissioned services.
The result? Clinics get delayed. Reviews get deprioritised. And pharmacies risk missing out on revenue and reputation-building opportunities. And errors can happen.
To scale clinical care, pharmacy teams must first scale consistency. That means building workflows that create protected time, especially for pharmacists, and reduce variability for technicians.
Without that, even the best service roadmap will hit the same wall: not enough time, not enough team, and too many tasks that automation could have solved. When this happens consistently, pharmacies struggle to deliver even funded services like blood pressure checks or oral contraception, let alone expand them. Time isn’t just lost, it’s never recovered. And without workflow change, service delivery can’t sustainably grow.
3. How Workflow Impacts Service Capacity
Workflow isn’t just about efficiency, it’s about enablement. In community pharmacy, the way tasks are structured determines what teams can actually accomplish in a given day. And when those workflows are misaligned, service ambitions stall.
Take a pharmacy that wants to run flu clinics during winter. If the pharmacist is still responsible for verifying every MDS tray, reviewing every label, and handling last-minute stock queries, where does the clinic time go? It gets squeezed into the margins, hurried, under-attended, or dropped altogether.
The same applies to NHS blood pressure checks or contraception services. These aren’t just quick transactions. They require privacy, consultation, clinical record-keeping, and sometimes follow-up. When your pharmacist is constantly pulled away to check a dosage or correct a pack, the service pipeline breaks down.
Technicians, too, face workflow blockages. Repetitive pack prep tasks, label application, and last-minute amendments fill the day with variability. Every unplanned interruption adds cumulative stress and undermines service delivery.
The outcome? A pharmacy that’s clinically capable but operationally capped.
To unlock service growth, workflow needs to evolve. Roles must shift from reactive to structured. Pharmacists need protected time, not theoretical time, and technicians need standardised tasks that don’t change every shift.
Automation plays a central role here. By absorbing the most repetitive and variable parts of the dispensing process, it creates a consistent foundation that allows everyone else to step up into clinical delivery.
Service expansion doesn’t start with policy, it starts with process. And in pharmacy, process lives inside the workflow. A streamlined workflow also improves staff satisfaction. When technicians know what to expect and pharmacists have time to plan, stress levels drop and services become easier to deliver. NHS-funded services don’t just require skill, they require structure. Without a workflow built to protect time, even funded programmes fall short.
4. Case Study: Spivack Pharmacy
Spivack Pharmacy, an independent community pharmacy in the UK, wanted to expand its clinical services—but was struggling to find time. Technicians were overloaded with manual MDS pack preparation, and pharmacists were routinely pulled away from consultations to manage workflow gaps and check dispensing errors.
The team introduced the Omnicell VBM 200F to automate MDS pack production. The results were immediate. Technician workload dropped significantly, and the accuracy of dispensing improved overnight. What once took several hours a day was now handled automatically—with digital tracking, barcode verification, and consistent output.
This change freed pharmacists to focus on services. Instead of managing rework and firefighting missed doses, the team began proactively delivering flu vaccinations, medicine reviews, and more structured consultations with patients. The pharmacy’s capacity to handle commissioned NHS services increased without hiring additional staff.
The improvement went beyond the clinical room. Technicians reported better job satisfaction and more confidence in their roles. Pharmacists had time to complete structured records and follow-up documentation, which improved service compliance and audit outcomes.
From a business standpoint, Spivack Pharmacy saw a measurable return: fewer dispensing errors, lower overtime costs, and improved patient engagement. With automation absorbing the most repetitive work, every member of the team could contribute at the top of their skill set.
Crucially, the automation didn’t replace anyone—it elevated everyone. Services expanded because the team finally had the bandwidth to deliver them properly.
For Spivack, the transition wasn’t just about efficiency. It was about unlocking the full potential of the pharmacy team, and meeting NHS expectations with confidence and consistency¹. The consistency also positioned Spivack Pharmacy to support local care homes and collaborate more confidently with NHS commissioners, scaling services without compromising quality or increasing risk.
5. How Automation Creates Clinical Time
The most powerful benefit of MDS automation isn’t just accuracy, it’s time. When repetitive, manual tasks are automated, pharmacists and technicians reclaim hours every week. That time becomes clinical capacity.
In most community pharmacies, service delivery competes with dispensing. A pharmacist might want to run a blood pressure clinic, but is pulled into checking packs, resolving stock queries, or troubleshooting last-minute dispensing issues. Automation interrupts that pattern.
When the Omnicell VBM 200F handles the bulk of MDS production, pharmacists no longer need to micromanage the workflow. Packs are consistently produced, labelled, and traceable—with exceptions flagged by barcode logic, not human intuition. Technicians become supervisors, not sorters. Pharmacists become clinicians, not contingency planners.
This shift does more than reduce stress—it creates strategic availability. Pharmacies can book clinics with confidence, knowing the dispensary won’t derail the schedule. Documentation gets completed in real time. Services are delivered more professionally, more consistently, and more sustainably.
For technicians, the shift in duties is just as valuable. Instead of repetitive tray filling, they contribute to clinical throughput—organising clinics, prepping consent forms, or managing recalls. Their roles evolve, not disappear.
Clinical service growth requires space. Automation creates that space—not by cutting staff, but by elevating them.
When capacity is protected, services don’t just launch—they last. This aligns directly with the NHS Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework (CPCF), which rewards pharmacies that can consistently deliver commissioned services. Automation isn’t just a workflow tool—it’s a clinical enabler. It gives pharmacy teams the breathing room they need to grow care delivery strategically, sustainably, and in line with NHS expectations.
6. Conclusion + Practice Owner Scorecard
Pharmacy services are no longer a nice-to-have—they’re core to future funding, patient trust, and NHS integration. But they don’t scale in thin air. They need capacity, consistency, and a workflow that protects clinical time.
This article has explored how automation—especially in MDS workflows—creates that space. It reduces bottlenecks, elevates staff, and allows pharmacies to confidently deliver services that generate revenue and improve care outcomes.
For pharmacy owners, the next step is evaluation. Is your current workflow helping or hindering your service potential?
Clinical Readiness Scorecard:
- Are your pharmacists routinely interrupted during consultations?
- Are MDS packs prepared manually for 100+ patients?
- Do technicians spend most of their day on pack prep?
- Are commissioned services being postponed or underutilised?
- Do you lack the headroom to scale service delivery?
If you answered “yes” to three or more, it’s time to explore workflow automation as a clinical strategy—not just a technical upgrade.
Your service ambitions are real. But they’ll only grow if your systems can support them. And in today’s environment, nothing supports them better than time.
FAQ
Why do pharmacy services need protected time?
Because clinical services like flu jabs or blood pressure checks require uninterrupted focus, documentation, and patient care—not last-minute multitasking.
Can automation really create clinical time?
Yes. By removing repetitive tasks like MDS pack preparation, automation frees pharmacists and technicians to focus on patient-facing services.
What’s the best place to start with workflow automation?
Start with the biggest bottleneck. For many pharmacies, that’s MDS trays. Automating this step unlocks the most time with the least disruption.
Is workflow change worth it for small pharmacies?
Absolutely. Even small teams can benefit from time savings, reduced fatigue, and better service consistency.
Will automation reduce staff needs?
No—it reassigns staff to higher-value work. It’s about doing more with the same team, not doing the same with less.
What’s the ROI for services?
Funded services can deliver ROI within months—if the team has the time to deliver them consistently.
Citations
1. Spivack Pharmacy Case Study – VBM
https://www.omnicell.co.uk/resource-library/videos/spivack-pharmacy-vbm-mds-video22/
