Sir, within our practice setting, topical local anaesthetic has been found to be of great use, particularly when used for the benefit of children and anxious patients. The topical anaesthetic used in our practice has been a 17.9% benzocaine gel (bubble gum in flavour), which appears to work well for our cohort of patients for a number of reasons.

As part of the clinical governance process, it had been identified that the product we use should be used within 14 days after opening. However, and as far as we are aware, this product is only supplied in a 30 ml pot, and as a result of this we are finding that we are needing to discard part-full pots of gel.

We would be grateful for any comments from readers, and in particular, whether there may be companies marketing or distributing similar benzocaine products in the UK, with either a longer shelf life time or in a smaller dispensing pot or unidose syringe formats?

1. Birmingham