The Scottish Dental Clinical Effectiveness Programme (SDCEP) has just published new guidance on drug prescribing.Figure 1Figure 2

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Figure 1

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Figure 2

This very helpful A5 ringbound volume brings together advice on dental prescribing from the British National Formulary (BNF; www.bnf.org) and the BNF for Children (BNFC; www.bnfc.org) and presents it in an easily accessible, problem-oriented style for use in primary care dental practice.

The guidance includes new additions to the ‘List of Dental Preparations’ in BNF 55,1 and incorporates recent guidance produced by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence2 on antibiotic prophylaxis which we summarise in Evidence-based Dentistry on page 37.

Registered dentists are legally entitled to prescribe from the entirety of the BNF and BNFC but dental prescribing within the UK National Health Service (NHS) is restricted to those drugs contained within the ‘List of Dental Preparations’ in the Dental Practitioners Formulary (DPF). Until recently, the DPF was a distinct publication, providing information on prescribing for general dental practitioners, but has now been incorporated into the body of the BNF and BNFC, making this advice available to both medical and dental practitioners.

The BNF is updated every 6 months and the SDCEP plan to monitor significant changes and will provide updates on its website (www.scottishdental.org/cep). The full guidance will be available for download from the SDCEP website together with information regarding hard copies of the guidance.