The new Medicines Compendium 2003 contains 2,586 Summaries of Product Characteristics (SPCs) which describe a medicine, including its properties, effects and warnings.

SPCs are written to guide healthcare professionals in the safe and appropriate use of medicines. To avoid potentially life-threatening errors and to support good clinical governance, it is vitally important for doctors, pharmacists, nurses and other healthcare professionals to have up-to-date medicines information at their disposal.

Every year there are an estimated 12,000 changes to UK medicines information contained within the SPCs. The Medicines Compendium contains this information from over one hundred manufacturers covering thousands of medicines. It encompasses the SPCs of both prescription only and pharmacy.

Since 2002 there have been:

• 666 additions
• 883 updated documents
• 512 deletions

The information includes:

• Indications
• Contraindictions
• Dosage
• Use during pregnancy
• Adverse drug reactions