Sir, it has come to my attention that there is a surprising lack of awareness amongst general dental practitioners that the British National Formulary (BNF) is no longer issued to dental practices free of charge.

The BNF can be accessed at no cost through an app and the Internet.

At first, I was deeply sceptical and somewhat cynical with regard to this migration away from print copies to a digitised version of the text.

However, having used the online version, I can immediately see a number of potential benefits for our patients.

On the homepage, there is a clear submenu to the left entitled 'Interactions – Browse the list of drug interactions, arranged alphabetically'. I would emphasise that similar information has always been available in the print copy. However, it does appear more accessible and clear in the digital version.

A recent BDJ paper detailed the potential for serious harm and death in prescribing miconazole oral gel to patients on warfarin.1 A simple search of the drug miconazole in the interactions tab would quickly produce a red box, explaining that the anticoagulant effect of warfarin is increased by the antifungal, that the reaction is 'severe' and that the MHRA 'advises avoid'.

Dental practices can still purchase an individual print copy of the BNF (£57.50) but I would question the wisdom of this when the online version is updated monthly and the print copy is only updated biannually.

I would implore all dentists involved in prescribing to make full use of this valuable resource so that we can work towards reducing prescribing errors.