Antibiotics: Drug Resistance
(asked on 22nd January 2018) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of over prescribing antibiotics by GP surgeries on the incidence of anti microbial resistance.
The English Surveillance Programme for Antimicrobial Utilisation and Resistance (ESPAUR) run by Public Health England has made a national assessment of prescribing patterns by general practices and clinical commissioning groups, together with an assessment of trends in antibiotic resistance among the most common types of bacteria causing serious infections. ESPAUR publishes annual reports and the most recent report, published in October 2017, is available at the following link:
Antibiotic prescribing is a major driver of antibiotic resistance as antibiotic exposure provides a strong selective pressure for the emergence and spread of resistant bacteria.
This is why the Government is seeking to reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing as part of a multi-faceted strategy to reduce antibiotic resistance.