Sir, given the recent tragic story where a patient was prescribed miconazole oral gel by her dentist whilst taking warfarin, and subsequently died, this has highlighted an important area for improvement.

Our medical GP colleagues have been using computer-based prescribing for many years now. Having worked as a part-time GP receptionist throughout my dental degree, I used such computer-based software regularly and noted its excellence in highlighting drug interactions before any prescription is issued. It also has the ability to flag up when medicines are being overused.

There are many advantages to adoption of this system in dental practice, particularly in terms of safer prescribing for patients, and also time efficiency so we could spend more time actually treating our patients. It should help prevent major drug interactions being overlooked in dental practice – such as in the case above. Given the time constraints of working within the NHS, computer-based prescribing would save on the time currently expended on hand written prescriptions and frantic searches through the BNF. Lastly, we could then advance one step further to adopt electronic prescribing methods, whereby prescriptions are sent electronically directly to pharmacies. This would be more efficient, prevent patients losing prescriptions, and reduce the potential for fraud.

1. Newcastle