RPS defends against corrections made to new BNF

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) has issued a statement defending the regular updates made to the new BNF to add new information and make corrections.

The Society says the number of corrections required in the new BNF has not increased markedly, but that the number of channels used to communicate corrections has increased. It also highlights that although recent reports to the BNF team have been described as “errors” they are in fact changes to the way content is represented and that the number of “clinically important” errors in the updated text remains low.

Neal Patel, head of corporate communications at the RPS, explains the reason behind the statement: “We issued the statement to ensure people had the correct information about the new BNF. The print edition has a new layout which people are getting used to. As always, we are happy to hear feedback or if pharmacists would like advice they can contact the RPS support service.”

The RPS emphasises that the BNF was restructured to better facilitate digital production for the future, improve user experience and to bring information into one place in print. However, in order to have access to information about any changes made, the RPS recommends that print users sign up to the monthly newsletter and regularly cross check with the updated electronic versions, particularly for medicines less familiar to them.

The RPS encourages all users of the BNF to continue to send feedback directly to the BNF team at editor@bnf.org to aid the ongoing development of the publication.