The development of new medicines information

The most important role that health care professionals can play in supporting the Medicines for Children programme of works, is in the development of the medicines information leaflets.

Medical expertise and experience is vital in the development of up to date medicines information for parents and carers. This information must also be practical, accurate and expressed in a way that is easy to understand for non-medical persons. We rely on health care professionals many years of practical knowledge gained from working with families.

Within this task, health care professionals can get involved in two ways:

  1. Developing new medicines information – view full list here
  2. Reviewing existing medicines information

It usually takes authors 2–3 hours to develop a new medicine information leaflet, and 30–45 minutes to review an existing medicine. We provide authors with a detailed template; the information in the leaflets is largely based on the British National Formulary for Children (BNF-C) and the author’s own experience. Each medicines leaflet then needs reviewing every 3 years to make sure that the information and guidance on that medicine has not changed. This involves checking the latest published information on the medicine using the most recent version of the BNF-C and the latest drug monographs.

We have an ever-growing list of medicines which have been requested and are awaiting development for the Medicines for Children website. We are looking for keen health professionals to work with us to write the clinical information needed for the medicines leaflet. The Medicines for Children team will you support you in this work.

If you are a health care professional and would like to work on developing new medicines or reviewing existing ones, please get in touch via email.

The full list of medicines which are seeking clinical support to prepare are available to view here: Medicines for development 2023 list.