Press Release 8 December 1998

Non-Principals to receive free BNFs

The NASGP has ended the mystery regarding the supply of BNFs to non-principals. The NHS Executive has confirmed that all GPs should receive a free copy of the BNF twice a year, and in fact supplies nearly 50% more BNFs than is required to Health Authorities and Boards.

The main obstacle to supply, however, is the "conspiracy of ignorance" that surrounds the whereabouts of non-principals. New NASGP Deputy Chairman Dr Tina Ambury said, "for too long now non-principals have been side-lined in respect of the clinical information they receive locally and nationally. This is due to the absence of a national non-principal database and, in the absence of any of the other national medical bodies’ willingness to do this, we have now taken it upon ourselves to use the NASGP membership database for this purpose”.

The NASGP has circulated a pre-formatted letter to all it's members for them to pass on to their respective local HA/HB Chief Executive. This serves to both remind them of their requirement to supply free BNFs to non-principals and to provide their HA/HB Chief Executive with information to include them on a local non-principal database for future correspondences.

In a similar initiative, the NASGP has also issued all its 1,200 members with a copy of the South Thames Guidelines for the Management of Common Medical Emergencies in General Practice. Funding for this was given by the Department of Health after discussions with the NASGP.

The NASGP is now able to provide a contact list of it's members free to all local LMCs, HA/HBs and Directors of Postgraduate Medical Education on request.