The BNFC is an essential reference source that contains prescribing information specifically for children. Understanding its contents will aid you during your clinical training as a foundation trainee pharmacist and in preparation for the GPhC exam/registration assessment, enabling you to tackle questions about medications for children.
To help you become acquainted with the BNFC’s content and practice using it, we’ve put together a list below that outlines some of the topics/subjects covered in the BNFC. At the end of the page, there is a practice quiz to test your knowledge in locating specific prescribing details for children within the BNFC.
This page is targeted at trainee pharmacists, but it may also be beneficial for other healthcare professionals, such as doctors and nurses in their training.
Topics/subjects in the BNFC
Task: Familiarise yourself with the BNFC by finding where the following topics/subjects are located
- Licensed status of a medicine
- Corrected gestational age of a neonate
- Supplying and prescribing unlicensed medicines/off-label use of medicines in children
- Guidance on masking the taste of medicines
- Biological and biosimilar medicines
- Supplying oral syringes
- What is classed as a sugar-free oral liquid preparation?
- Injections containing benzyl alcohol and polyoxyl castor oil
- Oral and parenteral medicines containing propylene glycol
- Dispensing of medicines in a reclosable child-resistant container
- Using the intravenous, subcutaneous, intramuscular, intrathecal, epidural and intraosseous routes in children
- Medicines in pregnancy and breast-feeding
- Estimating renal function in children
- Medicines in hepatic impairment
- Prescribing in palliative care
- Reporting of suspected adverse drug reactions through the Yellow Card Scheme
- Medicine safety warnings given from CHM/MHRA
- Frequency of side effects
- NICE Guidance
- List of E numbers
- Latin abbreviations
- Abbreviations and symbols used in the BNFC
- Resuscitation Council (UK) life support algorithms for newborn and paediatrics
- Table showing mean values for weight, height and gender by age
- Approximate weight conversion chart
- Body surface area charts for children under and over body weight of 40kg
- Cautionary and advisory labels for dispensed medicines
- Looking up a drug-drug interaction
- Prescribing for child with a stoma
- Administration of drugs via enteral feeding tubes
- Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome
- Higher-strength pancreatin preparations
- Types of arrhythmias
- Classification of anti-arrhythmic drugs
- Initial management and prevention of cyanotic spells in tetralogy of Fallot
- Treatment of hypertensive emergencies in children
- Treatment of pulmonary hypertension
- Treatment of thrombotic episodes
- Initial treatment of Kawasaki syndrome
- Management and drug treatment of hypercholesterolemia
- Closure of the ductus arteriosus
- Management of acute and chronic asthma based on recommendations from the British Thoracic Society and SIGN
- Using and caring for a spacer device
- Nebulisers
- IM adrenaline (epinephrine) dose for the emergency treatment of anaphylaxis
- Short-term and long-term prophylaxis of hereditary angioedema
- Use of cough medicines in children
- Prevention and treatment of respiratory distress syndrome
- Treatment of croup
- Use of benzodiazepines in children
- First and second-generation antipsychotic drugs
- Treating depression in children
- Treatment of ADHD
- Drugs used in nausea and vomiting
- Management of pain in sickle-cell disease
- Treatment of cluster headache
- Types of epilepsy syndromes
- Treatment of neonatal abstinence syndrome
- What diseases are notifiable?
- Summary of antibacterial therapy and prophylaxis
- Hypersensitivity reactions to penicillins
- Dosage and pharmacokinetics of aminoglycosides
- Tuberculosis treatment
- HIV infection in children
- Prophylaxis against malaria
- Varicella-zoster vaccines
- Treating threadworm infections
- Treatment of severe bronchiolitis caused by the respiratory syncytial virus
- HbA1c equivalent values
- Treatment of neonatal diabetes
- Treatment of hypoglycaemia
- Testing for suspected diabetes insipidus
- Treatment of nocturnal enuresis
- Prevention of neural tube defects
- Electrolyte concentrations—IV fluids
- Electrolyte content—gastrointestinal secretions
- Drugs unsafe for use in acute porphyrias
- Oral rehydration therapy
- Fluid requirements for children over 1 month
- Coeliac disease
- Phenylketonuria
- Enteral nutrition
- The iron content of different iron salts
- Fluoride and dental caries
- Vitamin K deficiency bleeding
- Drugs used in metabolic disorders e.g. carnitine deficiency
- Treatment of juvenile idiopathic arthritis
- Excipients in eye drops
- Nasal polyps
- Use of topical nasal decongestants
- Nasal staphylococci
- Types of oropharyngeal fungal infections and their treatment
- Prescribing topical preparations for neonates
- Treatment of nappy rash
- Verruca vulgaris treatment
- Cradle cap treatment
- Treatment of hyperhidrosis
- Suitable quantities of dermatological preparations to be prescribed for specific areas of the body
- Suitable quantities of parasiticidal preparations to be prescribed for the treatment of head lice, scabies and crab lice
- Excipients in topical preparations that may be associated with sensitisation
- Post immunisation pyrexia in infants
- Routine immunisation schedule
- Vaccinations in asplenia
Please note this list is not intended to be a complete list of all the topics/subjects covered in the BNFC.
