The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 276 No 7399 p524
6 May 2006

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Department of Health fails to renew DTB contract for NHS

NHS employees may no longer have free access to clinical evidence from the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin if the Department of Health decides not to renew the contract for the Which? publication.

The DTB was provided free of charge to all doctors and pharmaceutical advisers within the NHS under a £1.4m per year contract, which was not renewed by the DoH at the end of March.

“DTB is a unique publication,” said Ike Iheanacho, editor of DTB. “It is highly valued by the medical profession, makes a difference to the patient through improving prescribing and other management decisions and saves the NHS money.”

DTB was also freely available online to all NHS employees through the National electronic Library for Health. With this arrangement ended, if individual trusts elect not to subscribe to the bulletin, pharmacists — and any other health care professional working in the NHS — would need to pay for the DTB themselves.