Following the recent launch by the publishers of the British National Formulary (BNF) and British National Formulary for children (BNFC) of a new, faster, easier to use and access app, NICE has confirmed that its BNF app will be withdrawn later this year.

Aimed at prescribers, pharmacists and other health and social care professionals, the BNF and BNFC provide details of the medicines licensed in the UK and how they should be prescribed, including their side-effects, contra-indications and doses.

The new app has been purpose built for iOS and Android platforms. This has enabled an intuitive design and enhanced features around search and interactions checking and updating mechanisms.

For the first time adult and child BNF content is available through a single app, providing ease of use and saving space on users’ devices.

The new app is fully portable and users don’t need to be connected to the internet to access it; this means the BNF and BNFC’s authoritative guidance is readily available at the point of care in a digital format to suit the needs of health and social care professionals.

To encourage users of the existing NICE BNF app to migrate to the new one, NICE has announced that the existing app will no longer be updated.

Professor Mark Baker, director of the centre for guidelines at NICE, said: “There are over 50,000 regular users of the current NICE version of the BNF app so it is imperative that the transition to the new improved app runs as smoothly as possible.

“To make sure that happens we’ll be reminding users via a banner displayed at the top of each page of the current app that from 13 July it will no longer be updated and will be completely withdrawn later this year. Users will be signposted to information on the NICE website about the new app, including how to obtain it and the benefits it offers.”