Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment the Department has made of the potential merits of developing a holistic and whole-system approach to antimicrobial resistance, sepsis and infection prevention.

The United Kingdom’s five-year national action plan for antimicrobial resistance (AMR) takes a holistic and comprehensive approach across humans, animals, agriculture, the environment and food.

The national action plan includes a strengthened focus on infection prevention and control, with commitments to cut the number of resistant infections by 10% by 2025 and to halve levels of healthcare associated Gram-negative blood stream infections by 2023-2024.

It is critical that our work on sepsis and AMR is closely aligned. Sepsis forms an important part of NHS England and NHS Improvement’s AMR Programme, which continues to drive improvements in the prevention and management of infections and optimal antimicrobial use.